THE   NEW   REALISM 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY       . 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO 
DALLAS   •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE   NEW  REALISM 


COOPERATIVE  STUDIES  IN  PHILOSOPHY 


BY 

EDWIN   B.    HOLT 

WALTER  T.    MARVIN 

WILLIAM  PEPPERRELL  MONTAGUE 

RALPH   BARTON   PERRY 

WALTER   B.    PITKIN 

AND 

EDWARD   GLEASON  SPAULDING 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1912 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1912, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  August,  1912. 


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J.  8.  Cashing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


Ul 

-1VERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBAI^  ^.  u.LEGE  LIBRARY 


PREFACE 

ON  July  21,  1910,  we  published  a  brief  article  entitled  '  The  Pro- 
gram and  First  Platform  of  Six  Realists,' *  in  which  we  indicated  the 
direction  philosophical  inquiry  ought  to  take.  We  there  asserted 
that  advance  would  be  facilitated  by  cooperative  investigations ;  and 
the  drafting  of  the  platform  was  a  first  attempt  to  confirm  this 
belief.  The  present  volume  continues,  on  a  larger  scale,  the  work 
there  inaugurated ;  and  we  hope  it  will  be  followed  by  other  col- 
lections of  studies. 

The  introductory  essay  voices  our  common  opinions.  The  other 
essays  do  so  only  in  part.  It  has  seemed  best  to  publish  them  with- 
out laboring  for  complete  unanimity,  inasmuch  as  their  agreements 
quite  overshadow  their  differences.  They  have  been  written  after 
prolonged  conferences.  A  few  important  debatable  topics  are  briefly 
discussed  by  dissenting  members  in  the  Appendix. 

DECEMBER  31,  1911. 

1  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  7,  393.     This  is  reprinted  in  the  Appendix. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

SECTION  PAGE 

I.     THE  HISTORICAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  NEW  REALISM    ...        2 

1.  Naive  realism,  2  —  2.  Dualism,  4 —  3.  Subjectivism  of  the 
Berkeleian  type,  5  —  4.  Subjectivism  of  the  Kantian  type,  8  — 
5.  The  new  realism,  9. 

II.     THE  REALISTIC  POLEMIC    .........       11 

1.  The  fallacy  of  argument  from  the  ego-centric  predicament, 
11  —  2.  The  fallacy  of  pseudo-simplicity,  12 — 3.  The  fallacy  of 
exclusive  particularity,  14  —  4.  The  fallacy  of  definition  by  initial 
predication,  15  —  5.  The  speculative  dogma,  16  —  6.  The  error  of 
verbal  suggestion,  18  —  7.  The  fallacy  of  illicit  importance,  19. 

in.     THE  REALISTIC  PROGRAM  OF  REFORM       ......      21 

1.   The    scrupulous   use    of  words,    21  —  2.    Definition,    22  — 

3.  Analysis,  24 — 4.  Regard  for  logical  form,  25.  —  5.  Division 
of  the  question,  26  —  6.  Explicit  agreement,  28  —  7.  The  separa- 
tion of  philosophical  research  from  the  study  of  the  history  of 
philosophy,  30. 

IV.     REALISM  AS  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  PHILOSOPHY 31 

1.  Implications  of  the  rejection  of  subjectivism,  32  —  2.  Impli- 
cations of  the  rejection  of  anti-intellectualism,  32  —  3.  Monism 
and  pluralism,  33  —  4.  Knowledge  and  its  object;  the  independ- 
ence of  the  object,  33  —  6.  Identity  of  content  and  thing  known, 
34  —  6.  Platonic  realism,  35  —  7.  Summary,  36. 

V.     REALISM  AND  THE  SPECIAL  SCIENCES        ......       36 

1.  The  general  attitude  of  realism  to  the  special  sciences,  36 
—  2.  Realism  and  psychology,  37  —  3.  Realism  and  biology,  39  — 

4.  The  relation  of  realism  to  logic  and  the  mathematical  sci- 
ences, 40  —  6.  Realism  as  a  basis  for  cooperation,  41. 

THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  METAPHYSICS  FEOM 

EPISTEMOLOGY 
BY  WALTER  T.    MARVIN 

I.     THE  ISSUE  BETWEEN  DOGMATISM  AND  CRITICISM      ....       45 

1.  Epistemology  regarded  as  a  science  logically  prior  to  all  other 
sciences,  45  —  2.  Epistemology  regarded  as  a  science  of  the  limits 


viii  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

SECTION  PACK 

and  possibility  of  knowledge,  46  —  3.  Epistemology  regarded  as  a 
theory  of  reality,  47 — 4.  Summary,  49 — 5.  The  propositions 
held  by  the  dogmatist  in  opposition  to  criticism,  49  —  6.  The  con- 
clusion which  this  essay  will  endeavor  to  establish,  50. 

II.  THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  NOT  LOGICALLY  FUNDAMENTAL  .       51 

1.  Two  errors  suspected  to  be  present  in  the  argument  of  the 
criticist,  51  —  2.  Logic  is  not  a  science  of  the  laws  of  thought,  52 
—  3.  The  subject  matter  of  logic,  52 — 4.  This  subject  matter  is 
non-mental,  52  —  5.  Logic  is  not  the  art  of  correct  thinking,  53  — 
6.  The  way  in  which  we  use  logic  in  our  thinking,  54  —  7.  Sum- 
mary, 65  —  8.  Ambiguity  of  the  word  '  knowledge '  :  the  knowing 
process  and  the  thing  known,  56  —  9.  The  subsistence  of  proposi- 
tions, 57  — 10.  Conclusion,  60. 

III.  THE  LOGICAL  POSITION,  RELATIVELY  TO  THE  OTHER  SCIENCES,  OF 

THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  AND  IN  PARTICULAR  OF  THE 
PROBLEM  OF  THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  ...  60 
1.  The  science  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge  presupposes  logic, 
60  —  2.  The  doctrine  that  the  science  of  the  possibility  of  knowl- 
edge is  fundamental  to  all  sciences  other  than  logic,  61  —  3.  Science 
itself  and  belief  in  the  propositions  of  science  do  not  presuppose 
the  possibility  of  knowledge,  62  —  4.  An  ultimate  premise  is,  as 
such,  beyond  investigation,  63  —  5.  A  restatement  of  the  problem, 
67  —  6.  The  theory  of  knowledge  is  logically  subsequent  to  many 
of  the  special  sciences,  67  —  7.  So  also  is  the  science  of  the  limits 
and  possibility  of  knowledge,  70  —  8.  Conclusion,  73. 

IV.  EPISTEMOLOGY  DOES  NOT  GIVE,   BUT    PRESUPPOSES   A   THEORY   OF 

REALITY 74 

1.  Two  types  of  transcendentalism,  74  —  2.  Objections  of  the 
dogmatist  to  the  first  type  of  transcendentalism,  77  —  3.  A  brief 
examination  of  Kantian  transcendentalism  to  illustrate  these  objec- 
tions, 78  —  4.  Objections  to  the  second  type  of  transcendentalism  : 
(a)  reality  a  self-consistent  system,  80  —  5.  (ft)  reality  an  organic 
unity,  82  —  6.  Conclusion,  82. 

V.     AN  APPEAL  TO  THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST,  TO  THE  VERDICT  OF  HISTORY      83 

1.  To  what  has  the  change  in  our  modern  conception  of  the 
world  been  due?  83  —  2.  The  influence  of  mathematics,  85  — 
3.  The  influence  of  physics,  86  —  4.  The  influence  of  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  and  of  historical  research,  86  —  5.  Influences  at  work 
in  the  doctrine  of  primary  and  secondary  qualities,  87  —  6.  Influ- 
ences at  work  in  the  doctrine  of  causation,  89  —  7.  Influences  at 
work  in  the  doctrine  of  substance,  90  —  8.  Influences  at  work  in 
spiritualism  and  monistic  absolutism,  91  —  9.  Conclusion,  91. 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS  ix 

SECTION  PAGE 

VI.     METAPHYSICS  SHOULD  BE  EMANCIPATED  FROM  EPISTEMOLOGY  .        .       92 

1.  The  logical  and  methodological  indebtedness  of  metaphysics 
to  other  bodies  of  knowledge,  92  —  2.  Its  indebtedness  to  episte- 
mology,  94  —  3.  General  conclusion,  94. 

A  REALISTIC  THEORY   OF  INDEPENDENCE 
BY  EALPH   BARTON  PERRY 

I      THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  NOTION  OF  INDEPENDENCE        ...       99 

1.  Its  meaning  in  the  older  realism,  99  —  2.  How  used  by  Reid 
and  Locke,  100  —  3.  The  resulting  confusion  of  realism  with  sub- 
stantialism,  103  —  4.  The  present  necessity  of  clarifying  the  con- 
cept, 104. 

II.     MEANINGS  OF  THE  TERM  DEPENDENCE      ......     106 

1.  Relation,  106  —  2.  Whole-part,  107—3.  Part-whole,  107  — 
4.  Thing-attribute,  109  —  5.  Attribute-thing,  109  —  6.  Causation, 
109  —  7.  Reciprocity,  111  —  8.  Implying,  112  —  9.  Being  implied, 
112. 

III.  THE  MEANING  OF  INDEPENDENCE  IN  NEO-REALISM  .        .        .        .113 

1.  Independence  not  non-relation,  113  —  2.  Independence  not 
priority,  115  —  3.  Independence  denned,  117. 

IV.  A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE  FORMULATED  IN  GENERAL 

TERMS 118 

1.  All  simples  mutually  independent,  118  —  2.  And  independent 
of  complexes  of  which  they  are  members,  119  —  3.  Complexes 
mutually  independent,  119  —  4.  Complexes  dependent  on  their  sim- 
ple constituents,  119 — 5.  One  case  of  a  complex  depending  upon 
another,  119  —  6.  Another  case,  120  —  7.  A  third  case,  121  —  8. 
A  fourth  case,  121  —  9.  When  one  complex  is  independent  of  an- 
other, 122  — 10.  How  one  entity  may  acquire  dependence,  124. 

V.     A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE  APPLIED  TO  THE  CASE  OF 

KNOWLEDGE 126 

1.  An  experienced  entity  related  to  a  complex,  126  —  2.  Simple 
entities  not  dependent  on  consciousness,  126  —  3.  Complexes  inde- 
pendent of  knowledge  as  respects  their  simple  constituents,  129  — 
4.  Logical  and  mathematical  propositions  independent  of  con- 
sciousness, 129  —  5.  Physical  complexes  independent  of  conscious- 
ness, 130  —  6.  Logical,  mathematical,  and  physical  complexes  as 
objects  of  consciousness,  132. 

VL     CASES  OF  SUBJECTIVITY,  OR  DEPENDENCE  ON  A  PRIMARY  CONSCIOUS- 
NESS           136 

1.  Parts  of  consciousness  dependent  on  the  whole,  137  —  2.  Lim- 
ited reciprocal  dependence  of  parts  of  consciousness,  137  — 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS 


3.  Some  elements  dependent  on  selective  action,  138  —  4.  And 
some  on  combining  action,  139  —  5.  Value  dependent  on  con- 
sciousness, 140  —  6.  Works  of  art,  141  —  7.  History,  society, 
life,  and  reflective  thought,  142. 

VII.     THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  SUBJECTIVITY  ON  A  SECONDARY  CONSCIOUS- 
NESS     ..........'.     144 

1.  The  subject  of  consciousness  independent  of  being  known, 
144  —  2.  One  consciousness  independent  of  another,  145  — 
3.  Mental  content  independent  of  introspection,  147 — 4.  Value 
independent  of  value-judgments,  148  —  5.  Perception  independ- 
ent of  reflection,  149. 

VIII.     CONCLUSION 151 


A  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

BY  EDWARD  GLEASON  SPAULDING 

I.     INTRODUCTORY 155 

1.  The  types  of  analysis  and  of  wholes,  155 — 2.  What  is 
analysis  ?  167. 

II.     COLLECTIONS  AND  ENUMEBATIVE  ANALYSIS    .....     162 

HI.     THE    SECOND  TYPE    OF  WHOLE   (SPACE,    TIME,    ETC.)    AND  ITS 

ANALYSIS 169 

1.  Arithmetical  analysis,  173 — 2.  Numbers,  173  —  3.  Rational 
positive  integers,  173  —  4.  Relations,  175  —  5.  Rational  frac- 
tions, 177  —  6.  Irrational  and  real  numbers,  178  —  7.  The  analy- 
sis of  space,  181  —  8.  The  analysis  of  time,  190  —  9.  Motion  and 
its  analysis,  193  — 10.  Velocity  and  acceleration,  204  — 11.  Ac- 
celeration, 209 — 12.  Dynamics  and  duration,  212  — 13.  Other 
classes  of  individuals  (atoms,  etc.),  225. 
IV.  PERCEPTUAL  AND  CONCEPTUAL  ANALYSIS 230 

V.     THE  ANALYSIS  OF  ORGANIC  WHOLES 237 

1.  Chemical  compounds,  etc.,  237 — 2.  Organisms  and  their 
analysis,  243. 

A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 
BY  WILLIAM  PEPPERRELL  MONTAGUE 

.     I.     THE  MEANING  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR     ......     252 

1.  Definition  of  true  and  false,  252  —  2.  The  meaning  of  real 
and  unreal,  252  —  3.  Objections  to  the  definitions;  the  verbal 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  xi 

SECTION  PACK 

fallacy  of  psychophysical  metonymy,  256  —  4.  First  consequences 
of  the  verbal  fallacy  of  psycbophysical  metonymy,  257  —  5.  Sec- 
ond consequences  of  the  verbal  fallacy  of  psychophysical  me- 
tonymy, 260  —  6.  Summary,  262. 

II.     CAUSALITY  AND  CONSCIOUSNESS  IN  A  WORLD  OF  PURK  FACT   .         .     263 

1  Space,  time,  and  quality  as  the  ultimates  of  factual  analysis, 
263  —  2.  The  antinomy  of  causality  —  substantist  thesis  and  posi- 
tivist  antithesis,  264  —  3.  The  antinomy  of  consciousness  —  pan- 
hylist  antithesis  and  panpsychist  thesis,  268  —  4.  A  supplementary 
antinomy  of  consciousness  ;  are  perceived  objects  inside  or  outside 
the  brain?  276  —  5.  Consciousness  and  causality;  hylopsychism 
as  the  reciprocal  solution  of  the  two  antinomies,  278  —  6.  The 
three  directions  of  a  potentiality,  281 — 7.  A  certain  difficulty  in 
terminology,  282  —  8.  The  three  levels  of  potentiality,  283  — 
9.  Summary,  285. 

III.     THE  GENESIS  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR          ......     286 

1.  The  epistemological  triangle,  286  —  2.  The  two  kinds  of  truth 
and  error,  289  —  3.  Attention  and  belief,  292  —  4.  The  material 
fallacy  of  psychophysical  metonymy,  294  —  5.  Degrees  of  truth 
and  error  and  the  fallacy  of  internal  relations,  297  —  6.  Sum- 
mary, 300. 

THE  PLACE   OF    ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE   IN  A 
REALISTIC   WORLD 

BY  EDWIN  B.    HOLT 

I.     ILLUSIONS  OF  PERCEPTION  AND  THOUGHT  ......     303 

1.  Errors  of  space,  303  —  2.  Errors  of  time,  307  —  3.  Errors  in 
secondary  qualities,  308.  —  4.  Illusions  of  thought,  365. 

II.     ERROR 357 

1.  Images  assert  nothing,  357  — 2.  What  the  realist  asserts,  358 
—  3.  Contradiction  and  being,  360  —  4.  Contradiction  and  real- 
ism, 367. 

SOME  REALISTIC   IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

BY  WALTER  B.    PITKIN 
I.     THE  BIOLOGICAL  ATTACK  ON  REALISM 378 

II.     FORMAL  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  BIOLOGICAL  SITUATION   ....     380 

1.  Simple  description  of  some  stimuli  and  reactions,  382  — 
A.  Descriptive  difference  between  stimuli  and  reactions,  382  — 


xii  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS 

BECTION  PA.GK 

B.   Some  types  of    reaction,   386  —  a.   Simple  adjustment,   389 

—  b.    Simple  selection,  393  — c.    Conduction,   396;    the  flatfish, 
397  —  d.   Transformation,   405  —  e.    Resistances,  409  —  i.   Resist- 
ance by  destruction  of  stimulus,  409  —  ii.  By  interpolation,  411 

—  iii.  By  suspense  of  collateral  functions,  412. 

HI.     RESULTS  OF  THIS  FORMAL  ANALYSIS          ......     414 

1.  Perception  non-constitutive,  416  —  2.  No  internal  relations 
in  organisms,  422  —  3.  The  total  situation  not  reacted  to,  424  — 
4.  Pure  relations  as  stimuli,  425  —  The  fallacy  of  indiscernibles, 
428. 

IV.     SOME  DEFECTS  IN  MODERN  THEORIES  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS          .         .     434 

1.  The  morphological  fallacy,  434  —  2.  The  pragmatic  point  of 
view,  437 — 3.  The  new  realistic  analyses,  438  —  4.  The  biological 
point  of  view,  442. 

V.     THE  BIOLOGICAL  STATUS  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 443 

1.  The  structure  of  the  environment,  443 — 2.  The  environment 
as  a  space  complex,  445  —  3.  The  factors  of  the  biological  situa- 
tion, 453 — 4.  Projective  indiscernibles,  458  —  5.  Hallucinatory 
objects,  461  —  6.  Conclusion,  466. 


APPENDIX 

Program  and  first  platform  of  six  realists,  471  — Montague  on  Holt,  480  — 
Holt  on  Montague,  482  —  Pitkin  on  Montague  and  Holt,  483. 

INDEX  .  .     487 


THE   NEW   REALISM 


INTRODUCTION » 

THE  new  realism  may  be  said  to  be  at  the  present  moment  some- 
thing between  a  tendency  and  a  school.  So  long  as  it  was  recog- 
nized only  by  its  enemies  it  was  no  more  than  a  tendency.  But 
war  has  developed  a  class-consciousness,  .and  the  time  is  near  at 
hand,  if  indeed  it  is  not  already  here,  when  one  realist  may  recog- 
nize another.  This  dawning  spirit  of  fellowship,  accompanied 
by  a  desire  for  a  better  understanding  and  a  more  effective  co- 
operation, has  prompted  the  present  undertaking. 

It  is  perhaps  inevitable  that  the  new  realism  should  for  a  time 
remain  polemical  in  tone.  A  new  philosophical  movement  in- 
variably arises  as  a  protest  against  tradition,  and  bases  its  hope  of 
constructive  achievement  on  the  correction  of  established  habits 
of  thought.  Neo-realism  is  still  in  a  phase  in  which  this  critical 
motive  dominates,  and  is  the  chief  source  of  its  vigor  and  unanim- 
ity. Before,  however,  a  philosophy  can  come  of  age,  and  play  a 
major  part  in  human  thought,  it  must  be  a  complete  philosophy, 
or  must  at  least  show  promise  of  completeness.  If  it  is  to  assume 
the  role,  it  must  undertake  to  play  the  whole  part.  The  authors 
of  the  present  book  thus  entertain  the  hope  that  they  may  have 
succeeded  not  only  in  amplifying,  clarifying,  and  fortifying  the 
realistic  critique,  but  also  in  exhibiting  that  critique  as  a  basis  for 
the  solution  of  special  philosophical  problems,  and  for  the  pro- 
cedure of  the  special  sciences. 

1  The  following  introduction  expresses  opinions  common  to  the  several  authors 
of  this  book;  but  it  has  proved  convenient  to  make  use  of  parts  of  the  following 
articles  which  have  already  appeared  in  print.  Montague.  The  New  Realism 
and  the  Old.  /.  of  Phil.,  Pyychol,  etc.,  1912,  9,  39.  Perry.  Realism  as  a  Polemic 
and  Program  of  Reform.  J.  of  Phil.,  Pnychol.,  etc.,  1910,  7,  337,  365. 
B  X 


INTRODUCTION 


THE   HISTORICAL   SIGNIFICANCE   OF  THE   NEW  REALISM 

THE  new  realism  is  not  an  accident,  nor  a  tour  de  force,  nor  an 
isolated  and  curious  speculative  eruption.  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  its  correctness  or  power  to  endure,  it  must  at  least  be 
accorded  a  place  in  the  main  current  of  modern  thought.  It  is  a 
fundamental  and  typical  doctrine  —  definable  in  terms  of  the 
broad  play  of  intellectual  forces,  and  peculiarly  characteristic  of 
their  present  conjunction. 

The  historical  significance  of  the  new  realism  appears  most 
clearly  in  its  relations  with  'naive  realism/  'dualism'  and  'sub- 
jectivism.' The  new  realism  is  primarily  a  doctrine  concerning 
the  relation  between  the  knowing  process  and  the  thing  known; 
and  as  such  it  is  the  latest  phase  of  a  movement  of  thought  which 
has  already  passed  through  the  three  phases  just  indicated.  Neo- 
realism,  in  other  words,  seeks  to  deal  with  the  same  problem  that 
has  given  rise  to  'naive  realism,'  'dualism'  and  'subjectivism'; 
and  to  profit  by  the  errors  as  well  as  the  discoveries  for  which  these 
doctrines  have  been  responsible. 

1.  The  theory  of  naive  realism  is  the  most  primitive  of  these 
theories.  It  conceives  of  objects  as  directly  presented  to  con- 
sciousness and  being  precisely  what  they  appear  to  be.  Nothing 
intervenes  between  the  knower  and  the  world  external  to  him. 
Objects  are  not  represented  in  consciousness  by  ideas;  they  are 
themselves  directly  presented.  This  theory  makes  no  distinction 
between  seeming  and  being ;  things  are  just  what  they  seem.  Con- 
sciousness is  thought  of  as  analogous  to  a  light  which  shines  out 
through  the  sense  organs,  illuminating  the  world  outside  the 
knower.  There  is  in  this  naive  view  a  complete  disregard  of  the 
personal  equation  and  of  the  elaborate  mechanism  underlying 
sense  perception.  In  a  world  in  which  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
error,  this  theory  of  the  knowledge  relation  would  remain  unchal- 
lenged; but  with  the  discovery  of  error  and  illusion  comes  per- 


HISTORICAL  SIGNIFICANCE   OF  NEW  REALISM      3 

plexity.  Dreams  are  perhaps  the  earliest  phenomena  of  error  to 
arouse  the  primitive  mind  from  its  dogmatic  realism.  How  can  a 
man  lie  asleep  in  his  bed  and  at  the  same  time  travel  to  distant 
places  and  converse  with  those  who  are  dead  ?  How  can  the  events 
of  the  dream  be  reconciled  with  the  events  of  waking  experience  ? 
The  first  method  of  dealing  with  this  type  of  error  is  to  divide  the 
real  world  into  two  realms,  equally  objective  and  equally  external, 
but  the  one  visible,  tangible,  and  regular,  the  other  more  or  less 
invisible,  mysterious,  and  capricious.  The  soul  after  death,  and 
sometimes  during  sleep,  can  enter  the  second  of  these  realms.  The 
objectified  dreamland  of  the  child  and  the  ghostland  of  the  sav- 
age are  the  outcome  of  the  first  effort  of  natural  realism  to  cope 
with  the  problem  of  error.  It  is  easy  to  see,  however,  that  this 
doubling  up  of  the  world  of  existing  objects  will  only  explain  a 
very  limited  number  of  dream  experiences,  while  to  the  errors  of 
waking  experience  it  is  obviously  inapplicable.  Whenever,  for 
example,  the  dream  is  concerned  with  the  same  events  as  those  al- 
ready experienced  in  waking  life,  there  can  be  no  question  of  ap- 
pealing to  a  shadow  world.  Unreal  events  that  are  in  conflict 
with  the  experience  of  one's  fellows,  and  even  with  one's  own  more 
inclusive  experience,  must  be  banished  completely  from  the  ex- 
ternal world.  Where,  then,  shall  they  be  located  ?  What  is  more 
natural  than  to  locate  them  inside  the  person  who  experiences 
them  ?  For  it  is  only  upon  him  that  the  unreal  object  produces  any 
effect.  The  objects  of  our  dreams  and  our  fancies,  and  of  illusions 
generally,  are  held  to  exist  only  'in  the  mind.'  They  are  like 
feelings  and  desires  in  being  directly  experienced  only  by  a  single 
mind.  Thus  the  soul,  already  held  to  be  the  mysterious  principle 
of  life,  and  endowed  with  peculiar  properties,  transcending  ordi- 
nary physical  things,  is  further  enriched  by  being  made  the  habitat 
of  the  multitudinous  hosts  of  non-existent  objects.  Still  further 
reflection  on  the  phenomena  of  error  leads  to  the  discovery  of  the 
element  of  relativity  in  all  knowledge,  and  finally  to  the  realiza- 
tion that  no  external  happening  can  be  perceived  until  after  it  has 
ceased  to  exist.  The  events  we  perceive  as  present  are  always 


4  INTRODUCTION 

past,  for  in  order  to  perceive  anything  it  must  send  energy  of  some 
kind  to  our  sense  organs,  and  by  the  time  the  energy  reaches  us 
the  phase  of  existence  which  gave  rise  to  it  has  passed  away.  To 
this  universal  and  necessary  temporal  aberration  of  perceived 
objects  is  added  an  almost  equally  universal  spatial  aberration. 
For  all  objects  that  move  relatively  to  the  observer  are  perceived 
not  where  they  are  when  perceived,  but,  at  best,  where  they  were 
when  the  stimulus  issued  from  them.  And  in  addition  to  these 
spatial  and  temporal  aberrations  of  perception  we  know  that  what 
we  perceive  will  depend  not  only  upon  the  nature  of  the  object  but 
on  the  nature  of  the  medium  through  which  its  energies  have  passed 
on  their  way  to  our  organism ;  and  also  upon  the  condition  of  our 
sense  organs  and  brain.  Finally,  we  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  whenever  the  brain  is  stimulated  in  the  same  way  in  which  it 
is  normally  stimulated  by  an  object  we  shall  experience  that  ob- 
ject even  though  it  is  in  no  sense  existentially  present.  These 
many  undeniable  facts  prove  that  error  is  no  trivial  and  excep- 
tional phenomenon,  but  the  normal,  necessary,  and  universal 
taint  from  which  every  perceptual  experience  must  suffer. 

2.  It  is  such  considerations  as  these  that  have  led  to  the  aban- 
donment of  naive  realism  in  favor  of  dualism,  the  second  of  the 
aforementioned  theories.  According  to  this  second  theory,  which  is 
exemplified  in  the  philosophies  of  Descartes  and  Locke,  the  mind 
never  perceives  anything  external  to  itself.  It  can  perceive  only 
its  own  ideas  or  states.  But  as  it  seems  impossible  to  account  for 
the  order  in  which  these  ideas  occur  by  appealing  to  the  mind  in 
which  they  occur,  it  is  held  to  be  permissible  and  even  necessary 
to  infer  a  world  of  external  objects  resembling  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent  the  effects,  or  ideas,  which  they  produce  in  us.  What  we 
perceive  is  now  held  to  be  only  a  picture  of  what  really  exists. 
Consciousness  is  no  longer  thought  of  as  analogous  to  a  light  which 
directly  illumines  the  extra-organic  world,  but  rather  as  a  painter's 
canvas  or  a  photographic  plate  on  which  objects  in  themselves 
imperceptible  are  represented.  The  great  advantage  of  the  second 
or  picture  theory  is  that  it  fully  accounts  for  error  and  illusion; 


HISTORICAL  SIGNIFICANCE   OF  NEW  REALISM      5 

the  disadvantage  of  it  is  that  it  appears  to  account  for  nothing  else. 
The  only  external  world  is  one  that  we  can  never  experience,  the 
only  world  that  we  can  have  any  experience  of  is  the  internal  world 
of  ideas.  When  we  attempt  to  justify  the  situation  by  appealing 
to  inference  as  the  guarantee  of  this  unexperienceable  externality, 
we  are  met  by  the  difficulty  that  the  world  we  infer  can  only  be 
made  of  the  matter  of  experience,  that  is,  can  only  be  made  up  of 
mental  pictures  in  new  combinations.  An  inferred  object  is  al- 
ways a  perceptible  object,  one  that  could  be  in  some  sense  experi- 
enced ;  and,  as  we  have  seen,  the  only  things  that  according  to  this 
view  can  be  experienced  are  our  mental  states.  Moreover,  the 
world  in  which  all  our  interests  are  centered  is  the  world  of  experi- 
enced objects.  Even  if,  per  impossibile,  we  could  justify  the  belief 
in  a  world  beyond  that  which  we  could  experience,  it  would  be  but 
a  barren  achievement,  for  such  a  world  would  contain  none  of  the 
things  that  we  see  and  feel.  Such  a  so-called  real  world  would 
be  more  alien  to  us  and  more  thoroughly  queer  than  were  the  ghost- 
land  or  dreamland  which,  as  we  remember,  the  primitive  realist 
sought  to  use  as  a  home  for  certain  of  the  unrealities  of  life. 

3.  It  seems  very  natural  at  such  a  juncture  to  try  the  experi- 
ment of  leaving  out  this  world  of  extra-mental  objects,  and  con- 
tenting ourselves  with  a  world  in  which  there  exist  only  minds  and 
their  states.  This  is  the  third  theory,  the  theory  of  subjectivism. 
According  to  it,  there  can  be  no  object  without  a  subject,  no  exist- 
ence without  a  consciousness  of  it.  To  be,  is  to  be  perceived. 
The  world  of  objects  capable  of  existing  independently  of  a  knower 
(the  belief  in  which  united  the  natural  realist  and  the  dualistic 
realist)  is  now  rejected.  This  third  theory  agrees  with  the  first 
theory  in  being  epistemologically  monistic,  that  is,  in  holding  to  the 
presentative  rather  than  to  the  representative  theory  of  percep- 
tion ;  for,  according  to  the  first  theory,  whatever  is  perceived  must 
exist,  and  according  to  the  present  theory,  whatever  exists  must  be 
perceived.  Naive  realism  subsumed  the  perceived  as  a  species 
under  the  genus  existent.  Subjectivism  subsumes  the  existent  as 
a  species  under  the  genus  perceived.  But  while  the  third  theory 


6  INTRODUCTION 

has  these  affiliations  with  the  first  theory,  it  agrees  with  the  second 
theory  in  regarding  all  perceived  objects  as  mental  states  —  ideas 
inhering  in  the  mind  that  knows  them  and  as  inseparable  from 
that  mind  as  any  accident  is  from  the  substance  that  owns  it. 

Subjectivism  has  many  forms,  or  rather,  many  degrees.  It  oc- 
curs in  its  first  and  most  conservative  form  in  the  philosophy  of 
Berkeley.  Descartes  and  Locke,  and  other  upholders  of  the 
dualistic  epistemology,  had  already  gone  beyond  the  requirements 
of  the  picture  theory  in  respect  to  the  secondary  qualities  of  ob- 
jects. Not  content  with  the  doctrine  that  these  qualities  as  they 
existed  in  objects  could  only  be  inferred,  they  had  denied  them  even 
the  inferential  status  which  they  accorded  to  primary  qualities. 
The  secondary  qualities  that  we  perceive  are  not  even  copies  of 
what  exists  externally.  They  are  the  cloudy  effects  produced  in 
the  mind  by  combinations  of  primary  qualities,  and  they  resemble 
unreal  objects  in  that  they  are  merely  subjective.  The  chief 
ground  for  this  element  of  subjectivism  in  the  systems  of  dualis- 
tic realism  immediately  preceding  Berkeley,  was  the  belief  that 
relativity  to  the  percipient  implied  subjectivity.  As  the  secondary 
qualities  showed  this  relativity,  they  were  condemned  as  subjec- 
tive. Now  it  was  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  for  Berkeley  to 
show  that  an  equal  or  even  greater  relativity  pertained  to  the 
primary  qualities.  The  perceived  form,  size,  and  solidity  of  an 
object  depend  quite  as  much  upon  the  relation  of  the  percipient 
to  the  object  as  do  its  color  and  temperature.  If  it  be  axiomatic 
that  whatever  is  relative  to  the  perceiver  exists  only  as  an  idea, 
why,  then,  the  primary  qualities  which  were  all  that  remained  of 
the  physical  world  could  be  reduced  to  mere  ideas.  But  just  here 
Berkeley  brought  his  reasoning  to  an  abrupt  stop.  He  refused 
to  recognize  that  (1)  the  relations  between  ideas  or  the  order  in 
which  they  are  given  to  us,  and  (2)  the  other  minds  that  are  known, 
are  quite  as  relative  to  the  knower  as  are  the  primary  and  secondary 
qualities  of  the  physical  world.  You  can  know  other  minds  only  in 
so  far  as  you  have  experience  of  them,  and  to  infer  their  independent 
existence  involves  just  as  much  and  just  as  little  of  the  process  of 


HISTORICAL  SIGNIFICANCE   OF  NEW  REALISM      7 

objectifying  and  hypostatizing  your  own  ideas  as  to  infer  the  in- 
dependent existence  of  physical  objects.  Berkeley  avoided  this 
obvious  result  of  his  own  logic  by  using  the  word  'notion'  to 
describe  the  knowledge  of  those  things  that  did  not  depend  for 
their  existence  on  the  fact  that  they  were  known.  If  you  had  an 
idea  of  a  thing  —  say  of  your  neighbor's  body  —  then  that  thing 
existed  only  as  a  mental  state.  But  if  you  had  a  notion  of  a  thing 
—  say  of  your  neighbor's  mind  —  then  that  thing  was  quite  ca- 
pable of  existing  independently  of  your  knowing  it.  Considering 
the  vigorous  eloquence  with  which  Berkeley  inveighed  against 
the  tendency  of  philosophers  to  substitute  words  for  thoughts, 
it  is  pathetic  that  he  should  himself  have  furnished  such  a  striking 
example  of  that  very  fallacy.  In  later  times  Clifford  and  Pearson 
have  not  hesitated  to  avail  themselves  of  a  quite  similar  linguistic 
device  for  escaping  the  solipsistic  conclusion  of  a  consistent  sub- 
jectivism. The  distinction  between  the  physical  objects  which 
as  '  constructs '  exist  only  in  the  consciousness  of  the  knower,  and 
other  minds  which  as  'ejects'  can  be  known  without  being  in  any 
way  dependent  on  the  knower,  is  essentially  the  same  both  in  its 
meaning  and  in  its  futility  as  the  Berkeleian  distinction  of  idea 
and  notion.  For  the  issue  between  realism  and  subjectivism  does 
not  arise  from  a  psychocentric  predicament  —  a  difficulty  of  con- 
ceiving of  objects  apart  from  any  consciousness  —  but  rather  from 
the  much  more  radical  'ego-centric  predicament,'1  the  difficulty 
of  conceiving  known  things  to  exist  independently  of  my  knowing 
them.  And  the  poignancy  of  the  predicament  is  quite  independ- 
ent of  the  nature  of  the  object  itself,  whether  that  be  a  physical 
thing  such  as  my  neighbor's  body,  or  a  psychical  thing  such  as  my 
neighbor's  mind. 

Some  part  of  this  difficulty  Hume  saw  and  endeavored  to  meet 
in  his  proof  that  the  spiritual  substances  of  Berkeley  were  them- 
selves mere  ideas;  but  Hume's  position  is  itself  subject  to  two 
criticisms :  First,  it  succeeds  no  better  than  Berkeley's  in  avoid- 
ing a  complete  relativism  or  solipsism — for  it  is  as  difficult  to  ex- 

»Cf.  below,  11-12. 


8  INTRODUCTION 

plain  how  one  'bundle  of  perceptions'  can  have  any  knowledge 
of  the  other  equally  real  'bundle  of  perceptions'  as  to  explain  how 
one  'spirit'  can  have  knowledge  of  other  'spirits.'  Second,  the 
Humean  doctrine  suffers  from  an  additional  difficulty  peculiar  to 
itself,  in  that  by  destroying  the  conception  of  the  mind  as  a  'sub- 
stance,' it  made  meaningless  the  quite  correlative  conception  of 
perceived  objects  as  mental  'states.'  If  there  is  no  substance 
there  cannot  be  any  states  or  accidents,  and  there  ceases  to  be 
any  sense  in  regarding  the  things  that  are  known  as  dependent  upon 
or  inseparable  from  a  knower. 

4.  Passing  on  to  that  form  of  subjectivism  developed  by  Kant, 
we  may  note  three  points:  (1)  A  step  back  toward  dualism,  in 
that  he  dallies  with,  even  if  he  does  not  actually  embrace,  the 
dualistic  notion  of  a  ding-an-sich,  a  reality  outside  and  beyond  the 
realm  of  experienced  objects  which  serves  as  their  cause  or  ground. 
(2)  A  step  in  advance  of  the  subjectivism  of  Berkeley  and  Hume, 
in  that  Kant  reduces  to  the  subjective  status  not  merely  the  facts 
of  nature  but  also  her  laws,  so  far,  at  least,  as  they  are  based  upon 
the  forms  of  space  and  time  and  upon  the  categories.  (3)  There 
appears  in  the  Kantian  system  a  wholly  new  feature  which  is  des- 
tined to  figure  prominently  in  later  systems.  This  is  the  dualistic 
conception  of  the  knower,  as  himself  a  twofold  being,  tran- 
scendental and  empirical.  It  is  the  transcendental  or  noumenal 
self  that  gives  laws  to  nature,  and  that  owns  the  experienced  ob- 
jects as  its  states.  The  empirical  or  phenomenal  self,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  simply  one  object  among  others,  and  enjoys  no  special 
primacy  in  its  relation  to  the  world  of  which  it  is  a  part. 

The  post-Kantian  philosophies  deal  with  the  three  points  just 
mentioned  in  the  following  ways:  (1)  The  retrograde  feature  of 
Kant's  doctrine  —  the  belief  in  the  ding-an-sich  —  is  abandoned. 
(2)  The  step  in  advance  —  the  legislative  power  conferred  by  Kant 
upon  the  self  as  knower  —  is  accepted  and  enlarged  to  the  point 
of  viewing  consciousness  as  the  source  not  only  of  the  a  priori  forms 
of  relation,  but  of  all  relations  whatsoever.  (3)  The  doctrine  of 
the  dual  self  is  extended  to  the  point  of  identifying  in  one  absolute 


HISTORICAL  SIGNIFICANCE   OF  NEW  REALISM      9 

self  the  plurality  of  transcendental  selves  held  to  by  Kant,  with 
the  result  that  our  various  empirical  selves  and  the  objects  of  their 
experience  are  all  regarded  as  the  manifestations  or  fragments  of 
a  single,  perfect,  all-inclusive,  and  eternal  self.  But  it  is  not 
hard  to  see  that  this  new  dualism  of  the  finite  and  the  absolute 
selves  involves  the  same  difficulties  as  those  which  we  found  in  the 
Cartesian  dualism  of  conscious  state  and  physical  object.  For 
either  the  experience  of  the  fragment  embraces  the  experiences  of 
the  absolute  or  it  does  not.  If  the  former,  then  the  absolute  be- 
comes knowable,  to  be  sure,  but  only  at  the  cost  of  losing  its  ab- 
soluteness and  being  reduced  to  a  mere  'state '  of  the  alleged  frag- 
ment. The  existence  of  the  absolute  will  then  depend  upon  the 
fact  that  it  is  known  by  its  own  fragments,  and  each  fragmentary 
self  will  have  to  assume  that  its  own  experience  constitutes  the 
entire  universe  —  which  is  solipsism.  If  the  other  horn  of  the 
dilemma  be  chosen  and  the  independent  reality  of  the  absolute  be 
insisted  upon,  then  it  is  at  the  cost  of  making  the  absolute  unknow- 
able, of  reducing  it  to  the  status  of  the  unexperienceable  external 
world  of  the  dualistic  realist.  The  dilemma  itself  is  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  making  knowledge  an  internal  relation  and  hence 
constitutive  of  its  objects.  Indeed,  a  large  part  of  the  philosophi- 
cal discussion  of  recent  years  has  been  concerned  with  the  endeavor 
of  the  absolutists  to  defend  their  doctrine  from  the  attacks  of 
empiricists  of  the  Berkeleian  and  Humean  tradition  in  such  a  way 
as  to  avoid  equally  the  Scylla  of  epistemological  dualism  and  the 
Charybdis  of,  solipsism.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  the  more  empirical 
subjectivists  of  the  older  and  strictly  British  school  are  open  to 
the  same  criticism  as  that  which  they  urge  upon  the  absolutists; 
for  it  is  as  difficult  for  the  Berkeleian  to  justify  his  belief  hi  the 
existence  of  other  spirits,  or  the  phenomenalistic  follower  of  Hume 
his  belief  in  bundles  or  streams  of  experience  other  than  his  own, 
as  for  the  absolutist  to  justify  those  features  [of  the  absolute 
experience  which  lie  beyond  the  experience  of  the  finite  frag- 
ments. 

5.   And  now  enter  upon  this  troubled  scene  the  new  realists, 


10  INTRODUCTION 

offering  to  absolutists  and  phenomenalists  impartially  their  new 
theory  of  the  relation  of  knower  to  known. 

From  the  standpoint  of  this  new  theory  all  subjectivists  suffer 
from  a  common  complaint.  The  ontological  differences  that 
separate  such  writers  as  Fichte  and  Berkeley,  Mr.  Bradley  and 
Professor  Karl  Pearson,  are,  for  a  realist,  overshadowed  by  the 
epistemological  error  that  unites  them.  The  escape  from  subjec- 
tivism and  the  formulation  of  an  alternative  that  shall  be  both  reme- 
dial and  positively  fruitful,  constitutes  the  central  preeminent  issue 
for  any  realistic  protagonist.  It  is  prior  to  all  other  philosophical 
issues,  such  as  monism  and  pluralism,  eternalism  and  temporalism, 
materialism  and  spiritualism,  or  even  pragmatism  and  intellec- 
tualism.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  new  realism  shall  not  lead 
to  a  solution  of  these  problems,  but  only  that  as  a  basis  for  their 
clear  discussion  it  is  first  of  all  essential  to  get  rid  of  subjec- 
tivism. 

The  new  realists'  relational  theory  is  in  essentials  very  old. 
To  understand  its  meaning  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  beyond  Kant, 
beyond  Berkeley,  beyond  even  Locke  and  Descartes  —  far  back 
to  that  primordial  common  sense  which  believes  in  a  world  that 
exists  independently  of  the  knowing  of  it,  but  believes  also  that 
that  same  independent  world  can  be  directly  presented  in  con- 
sciousness and  not  merely  represented  or  copied  by  'ideas.'  In 
short,  the  new  realism  is,  broadly  speaking,  a  return  to  that  naive 
or  natural  realism  which  was  the  first  of  our  three  typical  theories 
of  the  knowledge  relation ;  and  as  such,  it  should  be  sharply  dis- 
tinguished from  the  dualistic  or  inferential  realism  of  the  Car- 
tesians. But  the  cause  of  the  abandonment  of  naive  realism  in 
favor  of  the  dualistic  or  picture  theory  was  the  apparently  hope- 
less disagreement  of  the  world  as  presented  in  immediate  experi- 
ence with  the  true  or  corrected  system  of  objects  in  whose  reality 
we  believe.  So  the  first  and  most  urgent  problem  for  the  new 
realists  is  to  amend  the  realism  of  common  sense  in  such  wise  as 
to  make  it  compatible  with  the  facts  of  relativity. 

For  this  reason  especial  attention  has  been  given  in  the  present 


THE   REALISTIC   POLEMIC  11 

volume  1  to  a  discussion  of  those  special  phenomena,  such  as  illu- 
sion and  error,  which  are  supposed  to  discredit  natural  realism, 
and  set  going  a  train  of  thought  that  cannot  be  stopped  short  of 
subjectivism.  It  is  necessary  to  inquire  closely  into  the  mechan- 
ism of  perception,  and  into  the  logic  of  contradiction  and  falsity. 
And  it  is  necessary  to  obtain  a  definition  of  the  central  thesis  of 
realism,  the  thesis  of  independence,  that  shall  not  be  so  loose  as 
to  violate  the  facts,  nor  so  vague  and  formal  as  to  disregard  them.2 


II 


THE   REALISTIC   POLEMIC 

INASMUCH  as  subjectivism,  renewed  and  fortified  under  the  name 
of  'idealism/  is  the  dominant  philosophy  of  the  day,  it  affords 
the  chief  resistance  which  an  innovating  philosophy  such  as  realism 
has  to  overcome.  The  realistic  polemic  is  therefore  primarily 
a  polemic  against  subjectivism;  but  the  errors  of  which  realism 
finds  subjectivistic  philosophies  to  be  guilty,  are  not  necessarily 
confined  to  such  philosophies.  They  may  be  generalized;  and 
in  so  far  as  they  are  generalized  their  discovery  is  of  greater  mo- 
ment. The  following  are  some  of  the  traditional  errors  which 
neo-realism  has  thus  far  succeeded  in  generalizing. 

1.  The  fallacy  of  argument  from  the  ego-centric  predicament. 
—  The  'ego-centric  predicament'  consists  in  the  impossibility  of 
finding  anything  that  is  not  known.3  This  is  a  predicament  rather 
than  a  discovery,  because  it  refers  to  a  difficulty  of  procedure, 
rather  than  to  a  character  of  things.  It  is  impossible  to  eliminate 
the  knower  without  interrupting  observation ;  hence  the  peculiar 
difficulty  of  discovering  what  characters,  if  any,  things  possess 
when  not  known.  When  this  situation  is  formulated  as  a  proposi- 
tion concerning  things,  the  result  is  either  the  redundant  inference 
that  all  known  things  are  known,  or  the  false  inference  that  all 

1  Cf.  below,  Nos.  IV,  V,  VI.  *  Cf.  below,  No.  II. 

1  In  this  connection,  '  known '  means  '  given  as  an  object  of  thought.' 


12  INTRODUCTION 

things  are  known.  The  former  is,  on  account  of  its  redundancy, 
not  a  proposition  at  all;  and  its  use  results  only  in  confusing  it 
with  the  second  proposition,  which  involves  a  petitio  principii. 
The  falsity  of  the  inference,  in  the  case  of  the  latter  proposition, 
lies  in  its  being  a  use  of  the  method  of  agreement  unsupported  by 
the  method  of  difference.  It  is  impossible  to  argue  from  the  fact 
that  everything  one  finds  is  known,  to  the  conclusion  that  knowing 
is  a  universal  condition  of  being,  because  it  is  impossible  to  find 
non-things  which  are  not  known.  The  use  of  the  method  of  agree- 
ment without  negative  cases  is  a  fallacy.  It  should  be  added  that 
at  best  the  method  of  agreement  is  a  preliminary  aid  to  exact 
thought,  and  can  throw  no  light  whatsoever  on  what  can  be 
meant  by  saying  that  knowing  is  a  condition  of  being.  Yet  this 
method,  misapplied,  is  the  main  proof,  perhaps  the  only  proof,  that 
has  been  offered  of  the  cardinal  principle  of  idealistic  philosophies 
—  the  definition  of  being  in  terms  of  consciousness.  It  is  difficult, 
on  account  of  their  very  lack  of  logical  form,  to  obtain  pure  cases  of 
philosophical  fallacies.  Then,  too,  this  particular  fallacy  has  so  far 
become  a  commonplace  as  to  be  regarded  as  a  self-evident  truth. 
The  step  in  which  it  is  employed  is  omitted  or  obscured  in  many 
idealistic  treatises.  In  others  it  is  spread  so  thin,  is  so  pervasive 
and  insidious,  that  while  it  lends  whatever  support  is  offered  for 
the  cardinal  idealistic  principle,  it  is  nowhere  explicitly  formulated. 
But  the  following  will  serve  as  a  typical  illustration.  "Things 
exist,"  says  Renouvier,  "and  all  things  have  a  common  character, 
that  of  being  represented,  of  appearing ;  for  if  there  were  no  repre- 
sentation of  things,  how  should  I  speak  of  them?"  1  It  is  clear 
that  no  more  is  proved  by  this  argument  than  that  things  must  be 
'represented'  if  one  is  to  'speak  of  them.'  That  all  things  have 
the  common  character  of  being  'spoken  of,'  which  is  the  funda- 
mental thesis  restated  in  a  new  form,  is  left  without  any  proof 
whatsoever. 

2.    The  fallacy  of  pseudo-simplicity.  —  There   is  a  disposition 
in  philosophy  as  well  as  in  common  sense  to  assume  the  simplicity 

1  Renouvier.   Mind,  1877,  2,  378. 


THE  REALISTIC  POLEMIC  13 

of  that  which  is  only  familiar  or  stereotyped.  This  error  has 
conspired  with  the  error  just  examined  to  lend  a  certain  plausi- 
bility to  subjectivism.  For  one  would  scarcely  assert  with  so 
much  gravity  that  the  world  was  his  idea,  or  that  the  'I  think* 
must  accompany  every  judgment,  unless  he  supposed  that  the 
first  personal  pronoun  referred  to  something  that  did  not  require 
further  elucidation.  Self-consciousness  could  never  have  figured 
in  idealistic  philosophies  as  the  immediate  and  primary  certainty 
if  it  were  understood  to  be  a  complex  and  problematic  conception. 
Yet  such  it  must  be  admitted  to  be,  once  its  practical  sim- 
plicity, based  on  habits  of  thought  and  speech,  is  discounted. 
Similarly  the  common  dogma,  to  the  effect  that  consciousness  can 
be  known  only  irrespectively,  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  it 
is  known  introspectively,  and  that  thus  approached  it  is  a  simple 
datum.  Traditional  spiritistic  conceptions  of  will,  activity,  im- 
mediacy, and  life,  rest  on  the  same  fundamental  misapprehension 
as  does  the  materialistic  acceptance  of  body  as  an  irreducible  en- 
tity. Thus  what  is  really  at  stake  here  is  nothing  less  than  the 
method  of  analysis  itself.  In  exact  procedure  it  is  not  permitted 
to  assert  the  simplicity  of  any  concept  until  after  analysis.  That 
the  concepts  enumerated  above  are  not  analytically  simple,  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  when  they  are  treated  as  simple,  it  is 
necessary  to  give  them  a  complex  existence  also  in  order  to  account 
for  what  is  known  about  them.  It  is  customary  to  say  that  this 
is  a  'manifestation'  or  'transformation'  of  the  simple  and  more 
fundamental  reality;  but  this  is  to  reverse  the  order  which  is 
proper  to  thought  as  the  deliberate  and  systematic  attempt  to 
know.  It  is  equivalent  to  asserting  that  the  more  pains  we  take 
to  know,  the  less  real  is  the  object  of  our  knowledge ;  a  proposition 
which  is  never  asserted  without  being  contradicted,  since  it  ex- 
presses the  final  critical  analysis  of  the  thinker  who  asserts  it.  The 
following  is  a  characteristic  example  of  the  error  of  'pseudo-sim- 
plicity,' as  applied  to  the  conception  of  activity. 

"Every  man,"  says  Professor  Ward,  "knows  the  difference  be- 
tween feeling  and  doing,  between  idle  reverie  and  intense  thought, 


14  INTRODUCTION 

between  impotent  and  aimless  drifting  and  unswerving  tenacity 
of  purpose,  being  the  slave  of  every  passion  or  the  master  of  him- 
self. ...  It  must  surely  ever  remain  futile,  nay,  even  foolish, 
to  attempt  to  explain  either  receptivity  or  activity;  for  what  is 
there  in  experience  more  fundamental?  And  being  thus  funda- 
mental, the  prime  staple  of  all  experience,  it  is  absurd  to  seek  to 
prove  them  real,  since  in  the  first  and  foremost  sense  of  reality  the 
real  and  they  are  one."  1  Nevertheless,  activity  and  passivity 
are  capable  of  being  analyzed  in  a  variety  of  ways,  logical,  physical, 
and  psychological ; 2  and  their  nature  can  be  regarded  as  a  simple 
datum  only  in  so  far  as  such  analysis  is  deliberately  avoided.  They 
are  simples  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  not  yet  analyzed, 

3.  The  fallacy  of  exclusive  particularity.  —  It  is  ordinarily  as- 
sumed that  a  particular  term  of  any  system  belongs  to  such  system 
exclusively.  That  this  is  a  false  assumption  is  proved  empirically. 
The  point  6  of  the  class  of  points  that  constitutes  the  straight  line 
abc  may  belong  also  to  the  class  of  points  that  constitutes  the  inter- 
secting straight  line  xby.  The  man  John  Doe  who  belongs  to  the 
class  Republican  Party  may  belong  also  to  the  intersecting  class 
captains  of  industry.  Unless  this  multiple  classification  of  terms 
were  possible,  discourse  would  break  down  utterly.  All  the  terms 
of  discourse  are  general  in  the  sense  that  they  belong  to  several 
contexts.  It  is  this  fact  that  accounts  for  the  origin  and  the 
usefulness  of  language.  Without  this  generality  of  terms  the 
world  would  possess  no  structure,  not  even  motion  or  similarity; 
for  there  could  be  no  motion  if  the  same  could  not  be  in  different 
places  at  different  times,  and  there  could  be  no  similarity  if  the 
same  could  not  appear  in  different  qualitative  groupings.  It  is 
little  wonder,  then,  that  the  virtual  rejection  of  this  principle  by 
philosophy  has  led  to  a  fundamental  and  perpetual  difficulty.  To 
this  error  may  perhaps  be  traced  the  untenability  of  Platonic 
universalism,  recognized  apparently  by  Plato  himself,  and  the 

1  Ward,  J.     Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  2,  52,  53. 

» Cf.  e.g.  James,  W.  The  Experience  of  Activity,  in  Essays  in  Radical  Em- 
piricism, VI. 


THE   REALISTIC   POLEMIC  15 

untenability  of  modern  particularism,  attested  by  the  desperate 
efforts  which  almost  every  modern  philosopher  has  made  to  save 
himself  from  it. 

The  most  familiar  variety  of  particularism  is  found  in  naturalism. 
This  may  be  traced  to  the  naive  bias  for  the  space-time  order,  or 
that  historical  series  of  bodily  changes  which  constitutes  the  course 
of  nature.  Naturalism  asserts  that  this  is  the  only  system,  and 
that  its  terms,  the  several  bodily  events,  belong  to  it  exclusively. 
That  this  theory  is  untenable  is  evident  at  once,  since  in  order  that 
bodily  events  shall  possess  the  structure  and  connections  necessary 
to  them,  being  must  contain  other  terms,  such  as  places,  times, 
numbers,  etc.,  that  are  not  bodily  events.  But  historically, 
naturalism  has  been  discredited  mainly  by  its  failure  to  provide 
for  the  system  of  ideas,  a  system  without  which  the  bodily  system 
itself  could  not  be  known ;  and  it  is  the  exclusive  particularity  of 
the  terms  of  this  latter  that  has  figured  most  prominently  in 
philosophical  discussions. 

In  dualism  of  the  Cartesian  type  the  terms  of  nature  and  the 
terms  of  knowledge  are  regarded  as  exclusive,  but  in  order  that 
knowledge  shall  mean  anything  at  all,  it  is  assumed  that  there  is 
some  sort  of  representative  relation  between  them.  Spinoza  and 
Leibniz  endeavored  to  bring  them  together  through  a  third  and 
neutral  term.  Among  the  English  philosophers  the  impossibility 
of  showing  how  the  mind  can  know  nature  if  each  mind  is  a  closed 
circle,  possessing  its  content  wholly  within  itself,  leads  finally  to 
the  abolition  of  nature  as  an  independent  system.  Thus  the  pen- 
dulum swings  from  naturalism  to  subjectivism;  and  in  the  whole 
course  of  this  dialectic  the  mistaken  principle  of  exclusive  par- 
ticularity is  assumed. 

4.  The  fallacy  of  definition  by  initial  predication.  —  This  form 
of  error  is  a  natural  sequel  to  the  last.  A  subject  of  discourse  is 
viewed  initially  under  one  of  its  aspects,  or  is  taken  initially  as  a 
term  in  some  specific  complex  or  relational  manifold.  Then,  owing 
to  the  error  of  exclusive  particularity,  it  is  assumed  that  this  sub- 
ject of  discourse  can  have  no  other  aspect,  or  belong  to  no  other 


16  INTRODUCTION 

relational  manifold.  Thus  the  initial  characterization  becomes 
definitive  and  final. 

Subjectivism,  again,  affords  the  most  notable  instances  of  the 
error.  Any  subject  of  discourse  may  be  construed  as  such;  that 
is,  as  a  thing  talked  about  or  'taken  account  of,'  as  an  object  of 
experience  or  knowledge.  The  vogue  of  the  psychological,  in- 
trospective, or  reflective  method  in  modern  thought  has  given  rise 
to  the  custom  of  construing  things  first  according  to  their  place  in 
the  context  of  consciousness.  Similarly,  the  habit  of  self-con- 
sciousness among  philosophers  has  emphasized  the  relation  of 
things  to  self;  and  the  prominence  of  epistemology  in  modern 
philosophy  has  tended  to  an  initial  characterization  of  things  ac- 
cording to  their  places  in  the  process  of  knowledge,  just  as  the 
prominence  of  religious  issues  led  early  Christian  ascetics  to 
name  things  first  after  their  part  in  the  drama  of  the  soul's 
salvation. 

Thus,  idealism,  quite  unconscious  of  having  prejudged  the  main 
question  from  the  outset,  "seeks  to  interpret  the  universe  after 
the  analogy  of  conscious  life,  and  regards  experience  as  for  us  the 
great  reality."1  Or,  as  another  writer  expressed  it,  "we  must 
start  .  .  .  from  the  whole  of  experience  as  such."  2  But  all  such 
initial  characterizations  must  be  regarded  as  accidental.  Allow- 
ance must  be  duly  made  for  alternative  and  complementary  char- 
acterizations;  and  the  question  of  the  priority  of  the  characteri- 
zation to  which  any  subject  of  discourse  submits  must  be  discussed 
quite  independently  of  the  order  which  is  determined  by  habit  or 
bias.  In  short,  the  very  general  disposition  at  the  present  time 
to  begin  with  a  psychological  or  epistemological  version  of  things 
must  not  be  allowed  in  the  least  to  prejudice  the  question  as  to 
whether  that  version  is  definitive  or  important. 

5.  The  speculative  dogma. —  By  the  'speculative  dogma'  is 
meant  the  assumption  for  philosophical  purposes  that  there  is 
an  all-sufficient,  all-general  principle,  a  single  fundamental  propo- 

1  Lindsay,  J.     Studies  in  European  Philosophy,  207. 

*  Baillie,  J.  B.     Idealistic  Construction  of  Experience,  105. 


THE  REALISTIC  POLEMIC  17 

sition  that  adequately  determines  or  explains  everything.  This 
assumption  has  commonly  taken  one  or  the  other  of  two  forms. 
By  many  it  has  been  assumed  that  such  a  principle  constitutes 
the  proper  content  or  subject  matter  of  philosophy.  Thus  Plato 
said:  "And  when  I  speak  of  the  other  division  of  the  intelligible 
you  will  understand  me  to  speak  of  that  other  sort  of  knowledge 
which  reason  herself  attains  by  the  power  of  dialectic,  using  the 
hypotheses  not  as  first  principles,  but  only  as  hypotheses  —  that  is 
to  say,  as  steps  and  points  of  departure  into  a  region  which  is  above 
hypotheses,  in  order  that  she  may  soar  beyond  them  to  the  first 
principle  of  the  whole  ;  and  clinging  to  this  and  then  to  that  which 
depends  on  this,  by  successive  steps  she  descends  again  without  the 
aid  of  any  sensible  object,  beginning  and  ending  in  ideas."  l  And 
Caird  makes  the  same  assumption  when  he  says  that  "Philosophy 
professes  to  seek  and  to  find  the  principle  of  unity  which  underlies 
all  the  manifold  particular  truths  of  the  separate  sciences."  2  But 
such  an  assumption  is  dogmatic,  because  it  ignores  the  prior  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  there  is  such  a  principle  or  not.  So  far  as  the 
general  task  of  philosophy  is  concerned,  this  must  be  treated  as  an 
open  question.  Philosophy  does  aim,  it  is  true,  to  generalize  as 
widely  and  comprehend  as  adequately  as  possible;  but  a  loosely 
aggregated  world,  abounding  in  unmitigated  variety,  is  a  philo- 
sophical hypothesis.  The  discovery  of  a  highly  coherent  system 
under  which  all  the  wealth  of  experience  could  be  subsumed  would 
be  the  most  magnificent  of  philosophical  achievements;  but  if 
there  is  no  such  system,  philosophy  must  be  satisfied  with  some- 
thing less  —  with  whatever,  in  fact,  there  happens  to  be.  By 
others,  in  the  second  place,  it  has  been  assumed  that  the  idea  of 
such  a  principle  or  system  is  the  property  of  every  thoughtful  per- 
son, the  existence  of  an  object  corresponding  to  it  being  alone 
doubtful.  This  assumption  gave  rise  to  the  ontological  proof  of 
God,  which  carried  conviction  only  so  long  as  man  did  not  question 
the  definiteness  and  meaning  of  the  idea;  for  the  assumption 

1  Plato,     (Jowett,  trans.)  Republic,  511,  B. 
*  Caird,  E.     The  Social  Philosophy  and  Religion  of  Comte,  xiii. 
0 


18  INTRODUCTION 

obscured  a  problem,  the  problem,  namely,  as  to  whether  there  is 
any  idea  corresponding  to  the  words  ens  realissimum.  The  pos- 
sibility of  defining,  on  general  logical  grounds,  a  maximum  of  being 
or  truth,  is,  to  say  the  least,  highly  questionable;  and  it  is  cer- 
tain that  this  problem  must  properly  precede  any  inferences  from 
such  a  maximal  idea. 

The  speculative  dogma  has  been  the  most  prolific  cause  of  the 
verbal  abuses  which  abound  in  philosophy,  and  which  are  to  be 
considered  separately.  It  is  through  this  dogma  that  various 
words  have  been  invested  with  a  certain  hyperbole  and  equivo- 
cation, in  consequence  of  the  attempt  to  stretch  their  meaning 
to  fit  the  speculative  demand.  A  further  evil  arising  from  the 
speculative  dogma  is  the  unjust  and  confusing  disparagement  of 
positive  knowledge  through  invidious  comparison  with  this  Un- 
known God  to  which  the  philosopher  has  erected  his  altar. 

6.  The  error  of  verbal  suggestion.  —  Words  which  do  not  possess 
a  clear  and  unambiguous  meaning,  but  which  nevertheless  have  a 
rhetorical  effect  owing  to  their  associations,  lend  themselves  to  a 
specious  discourse,  having  no  cognitive  value  in  itself,  and  stand- 
ing in  the  way  of  the  attainment  of  genuine  knowledge.  This  is 
Bacon's  famous  idol  of  the  forum.  In  philosophy  this  reliance  on 
the  suggestive,  rather  than  the  proper  denotative  or  connotative 
function  of  words,  is  due  not  only  to  man's  general  and  ineradicable 
tendency  to  verbalism,  but  also  to  the  wide  vogue  of  doctrines 
that  are  fundamentally  inarticulate.  We  have  already  examined 
two  errors  which  lead  philosophers  to  accept  such  doctrines.  The 
error  of  pseudo-simplicity  involves  a  reference  to  topics  that 
cannot  be  analytically  expressed;  they  cannot  be  identified  and 
assigned  an  unequivocal  name.  The  speculative  dogma  has,  as 
we  have  seen,  led  to  the  use  of  words  which  shall  somehow  convey 
a  sense  of  finality,  or  of  limitless  and  exhaustive  application,  where 
no  specific  object  or  exact  concept  possessing  such  characters  is 
offered  for  inspection.  This  is  what  Berkeley  calls  the  "method 
of  growing  in  expression,  and  dwindling  in  notion."  Ordinarily 
the  words  so  used  have  a  precise  meaning  also,  and  there  results  a 


THE   REALISTIC    POLEMIC  19 

double  evil.  On  the  one  hand,  the  exact  meaning  of  such 
terms  as  'force,'  'matter,'  'consciousness,'  'will/  etc.,  is  blurred 
and  vitiated;  and  on  the  other  hand,  their  speculative  meaning 
borrows  a  content  to  which  it  is  not  entitled.  The  desire  of  philos- 
ophers to  satisfy  the  religious  demand  for  an  object  of  worship  or 
faith,  doubtless  one  of  the  fundamental  motives  of  the  speculative 
dogma,  leads  to  yet  another  variety  of  verbal  suggestion,  in  which 
a  technical  philosophical  conception  is  given  a  name  that  possesses 
eloquence  and  power  of  edification.  Thus  philosophers  commonly 
prefer  the  term  'eternal'  to  the  term  'non-temporal,'  and  'in- 
finite' to  'series  with  no  last  term,'  or  'class,  a  part  of  which 
can  be  put  in  one-to-one  correspondence  with  the  whole.'  Such 
terms  as  '  significance,'  '  supreme,'  '  highest,'  '  unity,'  have  a 
similar  value.  Or  the  same  end  may  be  achieved  by  decorating 
almost  any  word  with  a  capital  letter,  as  is  exemplified  by  the 
emotional  difference  between  truth  and  Truth,  or  absolute  and 
Absolute. 

Finally,  there  is  a  verbal  abuse  which  is  worse,  even,  than 
equivocation;  for  it  is  possible  to  invent  utterly  fictitious  con- 
cepts simply  by  combining  words.  In  such  cases,  the  constituent 
concepts,  if  the  words  happen  to  signify  any,  are  not  united.  They 
may  be  positively  repugnant,  or  simply  irrelevant.  At  any  rate, 
they  have  not  been  tested  for  consistency,  and  whether  they  do  or 
do  not  constitute  a  true  system  or  complex  concept  remains  wholly 
problematic.  Such,  for  example,  is  the  case  with  Eucken's  "total 
activity,  which  by  its  own  movement  develops  into  an  independent 
reality  and  at  the  same  time  comprehends  the  opposition  of  subject 
and  object,  subjectivity  and  objectivity. " *  Such  procedure  is  the 
principal  source  of  the  fallacy  of  obscurum  per  obscurius  and  affords 
an  almost  unlimited  opportunity  for  error. 

7.  The  fallacy  of  illicit  importance.  —  This  is  one  of  the  most 
insidious  errors  which  has  ever  been  foisted  upon  mankind,  and  it 
is  the  idealist  who  has  popularized  it.  It  consists  in  inferring 
that,  because  a  proposition  is  self-evident  or  unchallengeable,  there- 

1  Eucken.     (Pogson,  trans.)  Life  of  the  Spirit,  329. 


20  INTRODUCTION 

fore  it  is  important.  There  is  a  healthy  animal  instinct  behind 
the  fallacy.  Men  have  early  learned  that  the  certain  affords, 
on  the  whole,  a  safer  basis  for  conduct  than  the  uncertain.  The 
merchant  who  is  sure  of  his  market  grows  rich  faster  than  his  igno- 
rant competitor.  The  statesman  who  is  sure  of  his  constituents 
acts  with  directness  and  decision.  So  it  is  throughout  all  practi- 
cal life.  Now,  the  practical  man  never  reflects  upon  his  own  men- 
tal processes,  and  thus  he  fails  to  note  that  the  certainty  he  feels 
toward  things  is  not  an  attribute  of  them,  but  only  a  certain  pre- 
cision in  his  attitude  toward  them.  But  the  fact  that  the  relations 
are  unequivocal  and  clear  is  no  proof  that  they  happen  to  be  of  much 
significance.  A  may  surely  be  C,  and  yet  its  being  C  may  be  the 
most  trivial  circumstance.  A  man,  for  instance,  may  be  abso- 
lutely sure  he  likes  cucumbers;  but  this  does  not  prove  that 
cucumbers  are  the  true  foundation  of  dietetics,  nor  that  his 
liking  of  them  reveals  either  his  own  nature  or  the  nature  of 
cucumbers. 

Undeterred  by  such  obvious  cases,  however,  the  idealist  is 
wont  to  reason  that  all  philosophy  and  all  science  must  be  built 
upon  the  one  fact  that  nobody  can  make  any  unchallengeable  as- 
sertion about  anything  except  his  having  an  immediate  experience. 

One  might  ask  the  idealist  whether  he  is  any  more  certain  of 
being  aware  than  he  is  of  the  presented  object ;  whether,  for  ex- 
ample, in  addition  to  saying:  "I  am  certain  that  I  am  experi- 
encing" —  he  cannot  say  with  equal  assurance :  "There  certainly 
is  a  tree  of  some  sort  over  yonder."  But  to  take  up  this  debate  is 
to  pass  beyond  the  fallacy  which  he  has  committed.  And  no  so- 
lution of  the  question  alters  the  fact  that  he  has  erred  logically  hi 
holding  that,  because  A  is  undeniably  B,  therefore  B  is  an  impor- 
tant characteristic  of  A.  There  is  no  sure  connection  between  the 
axiomatic  and  the  significant.  To  think  there  is,  is  vicious  in- 
tellectualism.  The  fallacy  is  curable  only  by  the  use  of  strict 
logic,  but  by  this  very  easily.  If  one  person  is  certain  that  a  dis- 
tant object  is  a  tree,  while  his  companion  is  equally  certain  that 
the  same  object  is  an  automobile,  is  it  not  obvious  that  certainty 


THE   REALISTIC  PROGRAM  OF   REFORM         21 

is  a  negligible  factor  in  the  problem  of  deciding  what  the  object 
really  is? 

Ill 

THE  REALISTIC  PROGRAM   OF  REFORM 

PHILOSOPHY  has  repeatedly  thrown  off  its  bad  habits,  and 
aroused  itself  to  critical  vigilance.  Furthermore,  there  is  good 
ground  for  asserting  that  there  has  never  before  been  so  great 
an  opportunity  of  reform.  Logic  and  mathematics,  the  tradi- 
tional models  of  procedure,  are  themselves  being  submitted  to  a 
searching  revision  that  has  already  thrown  a  new  light  on  the  gen- 
eral principles  of  exact  thinking;  and  there  is  promise  of  more 
light  to  come,  for  science  has  for  all  time  become  reflectively 
conscious  of  its  own  method.  The  era  of  quarrelsome  misun- 
derstanding between  criticism  and  positive  knowledge  is  giving 
way  to  an  era  of  united  and  complementary  endeavor.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  philosophy  is  peculiarly  dependent  on  logic. 
Natural  science  in  its  empirical  and  experimental  phases  can  safely 
be  guided  by  instinct,  because  it  operates  in  the  field  of  objects 
defined  by  common  sense.  But  the  very  objects  of  philosophy 
are  the  fruit  of  analysis.  Its  task  is  the  correction  of  the  cate- 
gories of  common  sense,  and  all  hope  of  a  profitable  and  valid  re- 
sult must  be  based  on  an  expert  critical  judgment.  The  present 
situation,  then,  affords  philosophy  an  opportunity  of  adopting  a 
more  rigorous  procedure  and  assuming  a  more  systematic  form. 
It  is  with  reference  to  this  opportunity  that  it  is  worth  while 
here  to  repeat  the  advice  which  is  our  common  inheritance  from 
the  great  philosophical  reformers.  None  of  these  canons  is  origi- 
nal, but  all  are  pertinent  and  timely. 

1.  The  scrupulous  use  of  words.  — This  is  a  moral  rather  than 
a  logical  canon.  There  is  need  in  philosophy  of  a  greater  fastidi- 
ousness and  nicety  in  the  use  of  words.  A  regard  for  words  is, 
in  philosophy,  the  surest  proof  of  a  sensitive  scientific  conscience ; 
for  words  are  the  instruments  of  philosophical  procedure,  and 


22  INTRODUCTION 

deserve  the  same  care  as  the  lancet  of  the  surgeon  or  the  balance 
of  the  chemist.  A  complacent  and  superior  disregard  of  words  is 
as  fatuous  as  it  is  offensive.  It  is  a  healthier  intellectual  symptom 
to  feel  as  Maclan  felt  in  Chesterton's  'Ball  and  the  Cross.' 
"Why  shouldn't  we  quarrel  about  a  word?  What  is  the  good  of 
words  if  they  aren't  important  enough  to  quarrel  over  ?  Why  do 
we  choose  one  word  more  than  another  if  there  isn't  any  difference 
between  them  ?  If  you  called  a  woman  a  chimpanzee  instead  of 
an  angel,  wouldn't  there  be  a  quarrel  about  a  word?  If  you're 
not  going  to  argue  about  words,  what  are  you  going  to  argue  about  ? 
Are  you  going  to  convey  your  meaning  to  me  by  moving  your  ears  ? 
The  church  and  the  heresies  always  used  to  fight  about  words, 
because  they  are  the  only  things  worth  fighting  about."  l 

2.  Definition.  —  "The  light  of  human  minds,"  says  Hobbes, 
"is  perspicuous  words,  but  by  exact  definitions  first  snuffed  and 
purged  from  all  ambiguities."  Words  are  properly  signs.  They 
are  serviceable  in  proportion  as  they  are  self-effacing.  A  skillful 
word  will  introduce  the  hearer  or  reader  to  his  object,  and  then 
retire ;  only  the  awkward  word  will  call  attention  to  itself.  It  fol- 
lows, then,  that  the  only  means  of  escaping  quarrels  about  words 
is  to  use  words  with  discrimination,  with  careful  reference  to  their 
objective  purport,  or  usefulness  as  means  of  access  to  ideas.  Fur- 
thermore, a  word  is  essentially  a  social  instrument,  whether  used 
for  record  or  communication,  and  requires  that  its  relation  to  an 
object  or  idea  shall  be  agreed  on  and  conventionalized.  This  is 
the  only  means  of  bringing  several  minds  together  in  a  common 
topic  of  discourse.  "Syllables,"  says  John  Toland,  "though  never 
so  well  put  together,  if  they  have  not  ideas  fix'd  to  them,  are  but 
words  spoken  in  the  air,  and  cannot  be  the  ground  of  a  reasonable 
service."  2 

Philosophy  is  peculiarly  dependent  upon  a  clear  definition  of 
the  reference  of  words  because,  as  we  have  already  seen,  its  objects 
are  not  those  of  common  sense.  It  cannot  rely  on  the  ordinary 

1  Chesterton.     The  Ball  and  the  Cross,  96. 

1  Toland.     Christianity  not  Mysterious  (2d  ed.) ,  30. 


THE  REALISTIC  PROGRAM   OF   REFORM         23 

denotation  of  words.     This  fact  affords  a  perennial  and  abundant 
source  of  confusion,  from  which  there  is  no  escape  save  through 
the  creation  of  a  technical  vocabulary.     Bacon's  observations  on 
this  matter  are  worthy  of  being  quoted  in  full.     "Now  words," 
he  says,  "being  commonly  framed  and  applied  according  to  the 
capacity  of  the  vulgar,  follow  those  lines  of  division  which  are  most 
obvious  to  the  vulgar  understanding.     And  whenever  an  under- 
standing of  greater  acuteness  or  a  more  diligent  observation  would 
alter  those  lines  to  suit  the  true  divisions  of  nature,  words  stand 
in  the  way  and  resist  the  change.     Whence  it  comes  to  pass  that 
the  high  and  formal  discussions  of  learned  men  end  oftentimes  in 
disputes  about  words  and  names,  with  which  (according  to  the 
use  and  wisdom  of  the  mathematicians)  it  would  be  more  prudent 
to  begin,  and  so  by  means  of  definitions  reduce  them  to  order. "  l 
Definition,  then,  means,  in  the  first  instance,  the  unequivocal 
and  conventional  reference  of  words.     But  there  is  a  further  ques- 
tion which  arises  from  the  use  of  single  words  to  refer  to  complex 
objects.     If  such  a  reference  is  to  be  unequivocal,  it  is  necessary 
that  there  should  be  a  verbal  complex  mediating  between  the  single 
word  and  the  complex  object.     Thus  if  a  circle  is  defined  as  'the 
class  of  points  equidistant  from  a  given  point,'  this  means  that  a 
circle  is  a  complex  object  whose  components  are  specified  by  the 
words  in  the  given  phrase.     The  single  word  is  virtually  an  abbre- 
viation of  the  phrase.     The  clarity  of  words  depends  in  the  end 
on  their  possessing  a  conventional  reference  to  simple  objects. 
But  with  the  progress  of  analysis  and  the  demonstration  of  the 
unsuspected  or  unexplored  complexity  of  things,  the  single  word 
which  at  first  denoted  the  object  in  its  pre-analytical  simplicity, 
comes  to  stand  for  several  words  which  denote  the  components  of 
the  object  in  their  post-analytical  simplicity.     Definition,  then, 
means  two  things :   first,  a  convention  regarding  the  substitution 
of  a  single  word  for  a  group  of  words ;   second,  a  convention  re- 
garding the  reference  of  words  to  objects.2 

1  Bacon.     Novum  Organum  (edition  of  Ellis  and  Spedding),  IV,  61. 

2  The  definition  of  things,  rather  than  words,  is  apparently  the  same  as  knowledge 
in  general. 


24  INTRODUCTION 

3.  Analysis. — The  term  'analysis'  properly  refers  not  to  the 
special  method  of  any  branch  of  knowledge,  but  to  the  method 
of  exact  knowledge  in  general,  to  that  method  of  procedure  in 
which  the  problematic  is  discovered  to  be  a  complex  of  simples. 
Such  procedure  may  lead  to  the  discovery  of  fine  identities  in  the 
place  of  gross  differences,  or  fine  differences  in  the  place  of  gross 
identities.  Analysis  in  this  sense  means  only  the  careful,  sys- 
tematic, and  exhaustive  examination  of  any  topic  of  discourse. 
It  cannot,  then,  be  proper  to  assert  that  such  procedure  destroys 
its  object.  It  does,  it  is  true,  require  that  naivete"  and  innocence 
of  mind  shall  give  place  to  sophistication ;  or  that  ignorance  shall 
give  place  to  some  degree  of  explicitly  formulated  knowledge.  But 
even  the  discovery  that  such  psychological  or  moral  values  are 
lost  is  itself  the  result  of  analysis.  Nor  is  there  any  difficulty  in 
providing  a  place  for  such  values  within  the  psychological  or  moral 
systems  to  which  they  belong.  In  the  second  place,  it  cannot  be 
proper  to  assert  that  there  is  anything  which  necessarily  escapes 
analysis,  such  as  'real'  change  or  'real'  activity.  The  method 
of  analysis  does  not  require  that  change  and  activity  shall  be  any- 
thing other  than  what  any  investigation  shall  discover  them  to  be. 
Analysis  may  show  either  that  they  are  unanalyzable  or  that  they 
may  be  further  reduced.  If  they  turn  out  to  be  unanalyzable,  it 
can  only  be  because  they  exhibit  no  complexity  of  structure,  no 
plurality  of  necessary  factors.  If  they  turn  out  to  be  reducible, 
then  they  must  be  identical  with  the  totality  of  their  components. 
If  they  appear  to  differ  from  such  a  totality,  then  they  must  appear 
so  to  differ  in  some  respect,  and  this  respect  must  at  once  be  added 
to  complete  the  totality.  It  is  especially  important  not  to  forget 
the  combining  relations.  A  toy  is  not  identical  with  the  collection 
of  the  fragments  into  which  it  has  been  shattered,  but  it  is  identi- 
cal with  these  fragments  in  that  particular  arrangement  which  has 
been  destroyed.  Similarly  dynamics  does  not  reduce  motion  to 
the  occupancy  of  positions,  but  to  the  occupancy  of  positions  in  a 
temporal  order.  There  is  a  perfectly  clear  difference  between 
geometry  or  statics,  on  the  one  hand,  and  dynamics  on  the  other. 


THE   REALISTIC   PROGRAM  OF   REFORM          23 

It  is  important  also  not  to  confuse  analysis  and  synthesis  with  the 
physical  operation  that  often  accompanies  them.  For  the  pur- 
poses of  knowledge  it  is  not  necessary  to  put  Humpty  Dumpty 
together  again,  but  only  to  recognize  that  Humpty  Dumpty  is  not 
himself  unless  the  pieces  are  together. 

The  common  prejudice  against  analysis  is  due  in  part  to  this 
false  supposition  that  it  is  an  attempt  to  substitute  a  collection  of 
parts  for  an  arrangement  of  parts.  But  it  is  due  also  to  a  more  or 
less  habitual  confusion  between  things  and  words.  Those  who 
have  employed  the  analytical  method  have  been  by  no  means 
guiltless  in  the  matter.  So  soon  as  any  word  obtains  currency  it 
begins  to  pose  as  a  thing  in  its  own  right,  and  discourse  is  con- 
stantly tending  to  take  on  the  form  of  a  logomachy.  It  has  not 
unnaturally  been  supposed  that  analysts  intended  to  verbalize 
reality,  to  give  to  its  parts  the  artificial  and  stereotyped  character 
of  words,  and  to  its  processes  the  formal  arrangement  of  grammar. 
But,  as  we  have  already  seen,  verbalism  cannot  be  avoided  by  a 
deliberate  carelessness  in  the  use  of  words.  If  words  are  to  be 
both  useful  and  subordinate,  it  is  necessary  that  they  should  be 
kept  in  working  order,  like  signposts  kept  up  to  date,  with  their 
inscriptions  legible  and  their  pointing  true. 

4.  Regard  for  logical  form.  —  Logic  is  at  the  present  time  in  a 
state  of  extraordinary  activity,  and  able  both  to  stimulate  and  to 
enrich  philosophy.  The  principal  contribution  which  modern 
logic  is  prepared  to  make  to  philosophy  concerns  the  form  of  exact 
knowledge.  This  problem  is  by  no  means  wholly  solved,  and  there 
is  an  important  work  to  be  done  which  only  philosophers  can  do. 
But  the  mathematical  logicians  have  already  broken  and  fer- 
tilized the  ground.  The  theory  of  relations,  the  theory  of  '  logical 
constants'  or  indefinables,  the  theory  of  infinity  and  continuity, 
and  the  theory  of  classes  and  systems,  concern  everything  fun- 
damental in  philosophy.  No  philosopher  can  ignore  these  and 
like  theories  without  playing  the  part  of  an  amateur.  The  mathe- 
matical logicians  may  be  quite  mistaken,  or  they  may  have  failed 
to  go  to  the  root  of  things ;  but  in  that  case  they  must  be  over- 


26  INTRODUCTION 

taken  in  their  error  and  corrected  on  their  own  grounds,  if  the  field 
of  scientific  philosophy  is  not  to  be  abandoned  to  them  altogether. 
The  present  situation  is  certainly  intolerable  ;  for  philosophy 
deals  with  the  same  topics  as  modern  logic,  but  treats  popularly 
and  confusedly  what  modern  logic  treats  with  the  painstaking 
thoroughness  and  exactness  of  the  expert. 

There  is  another  respect  in  which  modern  logic  should  be  of 
service  to  philosophy.  In  the  course  of  a  reconstruction  of  the 
foundations  of  mathematics,  certain  general  canons  of  good  think- 
ing have  come  to  light ;  and  these  are  directly  applicable  to  philo- 
sophical procedure.1  We  refer  to  such  canons  as  'consistency'  and 
'simplicity.'  These  canons  are  new  in  the  sense  that  they  are 
now  well  enough  defined  to  afford  a  means  of  testing  any  theory. 
A  theory  is  consistent  when  its  fundamental  propositions  actually 
generate  terms,  or  when  a  class  can  be  found  which  they  define  ; 
and  a  theory  satisfies  the  criterion  of  simplicity  or  parsimony  when 
none  of  its  fundamental  propositions  can  be  deduced  from  the 
rest.  It  behooves  philosophy,  then,  both  to  ally  itself  with  logic, 
in  the  investigation  of  the  most  ultimate  concepts,  such  as  relation, 
class,  system,  order,  indefinable,  etc.,  and  also  to  apply  to  its  own 
constructive  procedure  the  most  refined  tests  of  scientific  form. 
It  is  one  of  the  major  purposes  of  the  new  realism  to  justify  and 
to  extend  the  method  of  logic  and  of  exact  science  in  general.  For 
this  reason  one  of  the  essays  in  this  volume  2  is  especially  devoted 
to  defending  the  truthfulness  of  that  method  and  giving  it  full 
ontological  validity. 

5.  Division  of  the  question.  —  Although  philosophy  is  especially 
charged  with  correcting  the  results  obtained  in  each  special  in- 
vestigation by  results  obtained  from  other  investigations,  it  is 
folly  to  ignore  the  necessity,  humanly  speaking,  of  dealing  with 
one  problem  at  a  time.  Not  only  is  the  attempt  to  raise  and 
answer  all  questions  together  futile,  but  it  prevents  either  definite- 
ness  of  concepts  or  cogency  of  reasoning.  Exact  knowledge  must 

1  Cf.  Schmidt.  Critique  of  Cognition  and  its  Principles,  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc., 
1909,  6,  281.  »  No.  III. 


THE   REALISTIC  PROGRAM  OF  REFORM         27 

be  precisely  limited  in  its  application.  A  disposition  in  philosophy 
to  employ  terms  in  an  unlimited  sense,  and  to  make  unlimited 
assertions,  is  the  principal  reason  why  philosophy  at  the  pres- 
ent time  possesses  no  common  body  of  theory.  And  for  the  same 
reason  philosophy  is  to-day  without  any  common  plan  of  work  to  be 
done.  English  and  American  philosophers  have  been  much  exer- 
cised during  the  past  decade  over  what  is  called  'the  problem  of 
truth.'  It  is  assumed  that  the  various  parties  to  this  discussion 
are  referring  to  the  same  thing;  but  it  is  doubtful  if  this  would 
e-rer  be  suspected,  did  they  not  specifically  mention  one  another's 
•lames  and  writings.  These  quarrels  are  perhaps  due  less  to  dis- 
agreement on  the  merits  of  any  question,  than  to  an  irritable  de- 
termination to  be  heard.  If  a  sober  and  patient  attempt  were 
made  to  reduce  the  present  differences  of  philosophical  opinion 
to  debatable  propositions,  the  first  result  would  be  a  division  of 
the  question  at  issue.  It  would  certainly  appear  that  the  present- 
day  problem  of  truth  is  one  problem  only  so  long  as  it  is  a  symbol 
of  factional  dispute ;  discuss  it,  and  it  at  once  proves  to  be  many 
problems,  as  independent  of  one  another  as  any  problems  can  be. 
If  one  undertakes  to  enumerate  these  problems,  one  readily  finds 
as  many  as  seven :  (1)  The  problem  of  non-existence :  What  dis- 
position is  to  be  made  of  negated  propositions,  of  non-temporal 
propositions,  and  of  imaginary  propositions?  (2)  The  problem 
of  the  one  and  the  many :  How  may  many  elements  belong  to  one 
system  ?  (3)  The  problem  of  logical  form  :  What  are  the  ultimate 
categories?  (4)  The  problem  of  methodology:  How  shall  one 
best  proceed  in  order  to  know  ?  (5)  The  problem  of  universality : 
How  can  that  which  is  known  at  a  moment  transcend  that  mo- 
ment ?  (6)  The  problem  of  the  values  of  knowledge :  What  are 
the  criteria  of  right  believing?  (7)  The  problem  of  the  relation 
between  belief  and  its  object :  In  what  respect  does  belief  directly 
or  indirectly  modify  its  object? 

If  agreement,  or  even  intelligent  disagreement,  is  to  be  obtained, 
philosophical  issues  must  be  sharpened.  If  any  steady  advance  is 
to  be  made,  special  problems  must  be  examined  in  order,  and  one 


28  INTRODUCTION 

at  a  time.  There  is  a  large  group  of  such  special  problems  that  is 
by  general  consent  assigned  to  philosophy.  In  addition  to  those 
already  enumerated,  there  are  such  problems  as  consciousness, 
causality,  matter,  particularity  and  generality,  individuality, 
teleology,  all  of  them  problems  whose  solution  is  of  the  first  im- 
portance both  for  the  special  sciences  and  for  religious  belief. 
These  problems  are  examined  by  the  traditional  philosophy ;  but 
they  are  not  sufficiently  isolated,  nor  examined  with  sufficient 
intensive  application.  They  find  their  place  in  most  philosophical 
treatises  as  applications  of  a  general  system,  and  not  as  problems 
to  be  examined  independently  on  their  merits. 

6.  Explicit  agreement.  —  The  recent  discussion  of  the  desir- 
ability and  expediency  of  a  'philosophical  platform'  has  developed 
a  difference  of  opinion  as  to  whether  agreement  should  be  explicit 
or  implicit.1  Agreement  of  some  sort  is  conceded  to  be  a  desidera- 
tum, but  there  are  some  who  believe  that  a  common  tradition  or 
historical  background  is  all  that  is  necessary.  Now  is  it  not  evi- 
dent that  in  theoretical  or  scientific  procedure  there  is  no  agree- 
ment until  it  is  explicitly  formulated  ?  The  philosophical  classics 
afford  no  basis  for  agreement,  because  they  are  open  to  interpre- 
tation. The  difficulty  is  merely  complicated  through  the  necessity 
of  first  agreeing  on  the  meaning  of  a  text.  To  employ  terms  and 
propositions  in  their  historical  sense  is  to  adopt  precisely  the  course 
which  is  adopted  by  common  sense.  It  means  the  introduction 
into  what  is  supposed  to  be  exact  discourse  of  the  indeterminate 
human  values  with  which  tradition  is  incrusted.  In  exact  dis- 
course the  meaning  of  every  term  must  be  reviewed ;  no  stone  can 
be  allowed  to  go  into  the  building  that  has  not  been  inspected  and 
approved  by  the  builder.  Otherwise  the  individual  philosopher 
is  no  more  than  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  welt-geist.  He 
must  be  possessed  by  a  fatalistic  confidence  that  the  truth  will 
take  care  of  itself  if  he  only  repeats  the  formulas  that  he  has  learned 
in  the  schools  or  in  the  market  place.  But  the  most  precious  and 

1  Cf.  Schmidt,  Creighton,  and  Leighton,  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1909,  6,  141, 
240,  519,  673. 


THE  REALISTIC  PROGRAM  OF  REFORM    29 

cherished  privilege  of  philosophy  is  the  critical  independence  of 
each  generation.  Every  philosophical  reformer  from  the  begin- 
ning of  European  thought  has  been  moved  by  a  distrust  of  tradi- 
tion, and  has  proclaimed  the  need  of  a  perpetual  watchful- 
ness lest  the  prestige  of  opinion  be  mistaken  for  the  weight  of 
evidence. 

If  agreement  is  to  be  based  on  tradition,  then  tradition,  with  all 
its  ambiguity,  its  admixture  of  irrelevant  associations,  and  its  un- 
lawful authority,  is  made  the  arbiter  of  philosophical  disputes. 
That  no  theoretical  difference  is  ever  really  judged  in  this  way  is 
abundantly  proved  from  the  present  situation  in  philosophy.  We 
sympathize,  but  we  do  not  agree ;  we  differ,  but  we  do  not  disagree. 
It  is  of  more  importance  in  theoretical  procedure  that  two  or  three 
should  agree,  than  that  all  should  sympathize.  "If  the  trumpet 
gives  an  uncertain  sound,"  says  Toland,  "who  shall  prepare  him- 
self to  the  battle?"  Agreement  and  disagreement  alike  require 
the  explicit  formulation  of  theories  in  terms  freshly  defined.  It 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  those  who  insist  on  the  necessity  of 
explicit  agreement  have  in  mind  any  general  unanimity.  The 
principle  would  be  satisfied  if  a  single  philosopher  could  be  found 
to  agree  with  himself  —  provided  the  agreement  were  explicit. 
For  then  it  would  be  possible  for  others  to  disagree  with  him,  and 
to  disagree  explicitly.  We  should  then  have  before  us  a  number  of 
carefully  formulated  propositions,  which  could  be  tested  and  de- 
bated in  the  light  of  the  evidence,  propositions  which  would  be 
the  common  property  of  philosophers  and  the  material  with  which 
to  construct  an  impersonal  system  of  philosophical  knowledge. 

The  first  duty  of  philosophers,  then,  is  not  to  agree,  but  to  make 
their  implicit  agreements  or  disagreements  explicit.  Moreover  it  is 
not  easy  to  see  how  this  duty  can  be  escaped  without  entirely 
abandoning  philosophy's  claim  to  be  a  theoretical  discipline. 
If  we  cannot  express  our  meaning  in  exact  terms,  in  terms  that  we 
are  willing  should  stand  as  final,  if  like  the  sophists  of  old  we  must 
make  long  speeches  and  employ  the  arts  of  rhetoric ;  then  let  us  at 
least  cultivate  literature.  At  present  we  are  bad  scientists  and 


30  INTRODUCTION 

worse  poets.  But  philosophy  is  not  necessarily  ineffable.1  The  dif- 
ficulties which  some  philosophies  have  in  meeting  the  demands  of 
exact  discourse  are  gratuitous,  and  are  due  to  a  habit  of  mixing 
theory,  on  the  one  hand,  with  the  history  of  theory,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  with  common  belief.  It  is  not  necessary  that  phi- 
losophy should  abandon  its  interest  in  either  history  or  common 
belief,  but  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  isolate  those  interests,  and 
not  permit  them  to  compromise  its  direct  study  of  problems. 

7.  The  separation  of  philosophical  research  from  the  study  of 
the  history  of  philosophy.  —  A  problem  can  be  solved  only  by  the 
attentive  examination  of  that  which  the  problem  denotes.  But  a 
problem  of  historical  exegesis,  and  an  original  philosophical  prob- 
lem, necessarily  denote  different  things  and  direct  the  attention 
to  different  quarters.  Thus  the  problem  of  Hume's  conception  of 
causality  directs  attention  to  a  text,  whereas  the  problem  of  causal- 
ity directs  attention  to  types  of  sequence  or  dependence  exhibited 
in  nature.  It  is  worth  while  to  formulate  this  commonplace  be- 
cause there  is  a  present-day  habit  of  procedure  that  obscures  it. 
It  is  customary  to  assume  that  it  is  the  mark  of  rigorous  scholar- 
ship in  philosophy  to  confine  oneself  to  commentaries  on  the 
classics.  To  raise  the  question  of  the  importance  of  the  history 
of  philosophy  is  not  necessary.  That  it  has  an  indispensable  place 
in  human  culture  and  in  the  discipline  of  every  philosopher  is  not 
to  be  doubted ;  but  that  it  has  a  higher  dignity  than  a  direct  and 
independent  analysis  of  special  problems  seems  to  be  nothing  more 
than  a  superstition.  What  dignity  the  history  of  philosophy  pos- 
sesses it  derives  from  the  originality  of  the  individual  philosophers 
whose  achievements  it  records.  If  philosophy  were  to  consist  in 
the  study  of  the  history  of  philosophy,  it  would  have  no  history. 
Doubtless  the  by-product  of  originality  is  charlatanry  and  sopho- 
moric  conceit ;  but  mankind  is  not  less  well  served  by  this  than  by 
the  complacent  pedantry  which  is  the  by-product  of  erudition. 

But  whether  the  historical  form  of  treatment  does  or  does  not 

»Cf.  Sheffer,  H.  M.  Ineffable  Philosophies,  /.  of  Phil,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1909,  6, 
123. 


REALISM  AS  A  CONSTRUCTIVE   PHILOSOPHY     31 

lend  dignity  to  philosophical  discourse,  it  certainly  adds  com- 
plexity and  difficulty.  Ferrier,  good  Hegelian  though  he  was  at 
heart,  confided  to  his  readers  the  hopelessness  of  undertaking  to 
show  whether  his  conclusion  agreed  with  Hegel's  or  not.  "It  is 
impossible  to  say  to  what  extent  this  proposition  coincides,  or  does 
not  coincide,  with  his  opinions ;  for  whatever  truth  there  may  be 
in  Hegel,  it  is  certain  that  his  meaning  cannot  be  wrung  from  him 
by  any  amount  of  mere  reading,  any  more  than  the  whisky  which 
is  in  bread  .  .  .  can  be  extracted  by  squeezing  the  loaf  into  a 
tumbler.  He  requires  to  be  distilled,  as  all  philosophers  do  more 
or  less  —  but  Hegel  to  an  extent  which  is  unparalleled.  A  much 
less  intellectual  effort  would  be  required  to  find  out  the  truth  for 
oneself  than  to  understand  his  exposition  of  it." l  Ferrier  does  not 
exaggerate  the  difficulty  of  historical  exegesis;  for  it  is  true  not 
only  that  the  great  philosophies  require  to  be  distilled,  but  that  they 
also  require  to  be  translated  from  the  terms  of  their  own  traditional 
context  to  the  terms  of  another.  Moreover  there  must  always  be  a 
large  marginal  error  in  any  such  interpretation.  This  being  the  case, 
it  is  not  only  gratuitous,  but  suicidal,  to  add  the  difficulties  of  this 
problem  to  the  difficulties  of  each  special  philosophical  problem. 


IV 


REALISM  AS  A   CONSTRUCTIVE   PHILOSOPHY 

As  is  almost  universally  the  case  with  conscious  and  methodical 
criticism,  realism  finds  itself  committed  to  certain  positive  beliefs. 
The  very  act  of  criticism  itself  cannot  but  define,  however  broadly 
and  tentatively,  the  outline  of  a  general  philosophy.  Thus,  the 
grounds  on  which  realism  rejects  subjectivism  determine  to  some 
extent  the  superstructure  which  is  to  be  reared  in  its  place ;  while 
the  very  fact  of  the  rejection  of  subjectivism  excludes  one  of  the 
leading  metaphysical  alternatives,  and  gives  heightened  emphasis 
to  the  alternatives  that  remain. 

1  Ferrier.    Institutes  of  Metaphysics,  96-97. 


32  INTRODUCTION 

1.  Perhaps  the  most  notable  feature  of  a  realistic  philosophy  is 
the  emancipation  of  metaphysics  from  epistemology.1    This  means 
that  the  nature  of  things  is  not  to  be  sought  primarily  in  the  nature 
of  knowledge.     It  does  not  follow  that  a  realist  may  not  be  brought 
in  the  end  to  conclude  that  moral  or  spiritual  principles  dominate 
the  existent  world,  but  only  that  this  conclusion  is  not  to  be  reached 
by  arguing  from  the  priority  of  knowledge  over  its  objects.     Moral- 
ism  and  spiritualism  must  take  their  chance  among  various  hy- 
potheses ;  and  the  question  of  their  truth  is  to  be  determined  by 
the  place  of  such  principles  among  the  rest  within  the  world.     The 
general  fact  that  whatever  the  world  be  judged  to  be,  it  is  at  any 
rate  so  judged,  and  therefore  an  object  of  cognition,  is  to  be  ig- 
nored ;  and  one  is  left  to  decide  only  whether  on  empirical  grounds 
one  may  fairly  judge  the  world  to  be  spiritual  or  moral  in  part 
only,  or  on  the  whole.     It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  the  chief  ground 
on  which  a  spiritualistic  or  ethical  metaphysics  has  latterly  been 
urged  is  removed.     But  at  the  same  time  the  metaphysical  sig- 
nificance of  life,  consciousness,  and  morality  as  facts  among  facts 
is  at  once  increased ;  and  these  may  now  be   employed  for  the 
formulation  of  hypotheses  that  are  at  least  pragmatic  and  verifiable. 

2.  Again,  in  rejecting  anti-intellectualism  and  espousing  the 
analytical  method,  realism  is  committed  to  the  rejection  of  all 
mystical  philosophies.     This  holds  of  all  philosophies  that  rely 
on  immediacy  for  a  knowledge  of  complexness ;  of  all  philosophies 
that  regard  the  many  in  one  as  a  mystery  that  can  be  resolved 
only  by  an  ineffable  insight.    A  neo-realist  recognizes  no  ultimate 
immediacies    nor  non-relational   nor  indefinable   entities,  except 
the  simples  in  which  analysis  terminates.    The  ultimate  terms  of 
knowledge  are  the  terms  that  survive  an  analysis  that   has  been 
carried  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  carry  it ;  and  not  the  terms  which 
possess  simplicity  only  because  analysis  has  not  been  applied  to 
them.    Such  a  course  of  procedure  is  fatal,  not  only  to  a  mystical 
universalism  in  which  the  totality  of  things  is  resolved  into  a  mo- 
ment of  ecstasy,  but  also  to  those  more  limited  mysticisms  in  which 

i  Cf.  below,  No.  I. 


REALISM  AS   A  CONSTRUCTIVE   PHILOSOPHY    33 

complexes  such  as  substance,  will,  activity,  life,  energy  or  power, 
are  regarded  despite  the  obvious  manifoldness  of  their  characters, 
as  nevertheless  fused  and  inarticulate.  It  follows  that  neo-realism 
rejects  all  philosophies  in  which  metaphysics  is  sharply  divorced 
from  the  special  sciences,  on  the  ground  that  while  the  latter  must 
analyze,  specify,  and  systematize,  the  former  may  enjoy  a  peculiar 
illumination  of  its  own,  in  which  the  true  heart  of  things  is  made 
apparent,  and  the  facts  and  laws  of  science  are  reduced  to  dead 
abstractions,  or  mere  instrumental  artifacts. 

3.  For  several  reasons  the  new  realism  tends,  at  least  in  the 
present  state  of  knowledge,  to  be  metaphysically  pluralistic  rather 
than  monistic.     Most  metaphysical  monisms  have  been  based  on 
one  or  the  other  of  two  grounds.     The  first  of  these  is  the  internal- 
ity  of  relations ;  the  supposition  that  the  nature  of  terms  contains 
their  relations.     It  is  easy  to  argue  from  this  premise,  that  since 
all  things  are  interrelated,  the  nature  of  each  contains  the  nature 
of  all.     Realism  rejects  the  premise  that  all  relations  are  internal, 
because  it  is  believed  that  it  is  contrary  to  the  facts  of  existence, 
and  to  the  facts  of  logic.     The  second  ground  of  monism  is  the 
universality  of  cognition.     The  rejection  of  this  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  very  starting-point  of  realism.     Without  one  or  the  other  of 
these  grounds  it  is  not  possible  to  construct  a  monism  dialectically 
or  a  priori.    This  question  also  becomes  an  empirical  question, 
and  in  lieu  of  the  discovery  of  a  law,  or  set  of  postulates  that  shall 
explain  everything,  we  must  at  least  remain  skeptical.    The  evi- 
dence at  present  available  indicates  that  while  all  things  may  per- 
haps be  related,  many  of  these  relations  are  not  constitutive  or 
determinative ;  that  is,  do  not  enter  into  the  explanation  of  the 
nature  or  existence  of  their  terms. 

4.  Again,  the  primary  polemical   contention  of  realism,  its  re- 
jection  of   subjectivism,    has   its   constructive   implications.     If 
cognition  is  not  the  universal  condition  of  being,  then  cognition 
must  take  its  place  within  being,  on  the  same  plane  as  space,  or 
number,  or  physical  nature.     Cognition,  in  other  words,  has  its 
genesis  and  its  environment.     When  knowledge  takes  place,  there 


34  INTRODUCTION 

is  a  knower  interacting  with  things.  The  knower,  furthermore, 
since  it  cannot  legitimately  be  saved  from  analysis,  and  referred 
to  a  unique  mystical  revelation,  must  take  its  place  in  one  mani- 
fold with  the  things  it  knows.  The  difference  between  knower  and 
known  is  like  the  difference  between  bodies,  or  states  of  conscious- 
ness, or  societies,  or  colors,  or  any  grouping  of  things  whatsoever 
in  the  respect  that  they  must  be  brought  into  one  field  of  study,  and 
observed  in  their  mutual  transactions. 

In  all  this  it  is  presupposed  that  if  there  is  to  be  knowledge,  there 
must  be  something  there  to  be  known,  and  something  there  to 
know ;  '  there '  meaning  the  field  in  which  their  relation  obtains. 
Their  correlation  is  not  a  basic  and  universal  dichotomy,  but  only 
a  special  type  of  correlation,  having  no  greater  prima  fade  dignity 
than  the  many  other  correlations  which  the  world  exhibits.  It 
is  not  to  be  taken  in  bar»  formal  terms,  but  is  to  be  observed  con- 
cretely, and  in  its  native  habitat.  The  realist  believes  that  he 
thus  discovers  that  the  interrelation  in  question  is  not  responsible 
for  the  characters  of  the  thing  known.  In  the  first  place  being 
known  is  something  that  happens  to  a  preexisting  thing.  The 
characters  of  that  preexisting  thing  determine  what  happens  when 
it  is  known.  Then,  in  the  second  place,  when  the  knowing  takes 
place,  these  characters  are  at  least  for  the  most  part  undisturbed. 
If  they  are  disturbed,  or  modified,  then  the  modification  itself  has 
to  be  explained  in  terms  of  certain  original  characters,  as  conditions 
of  the  modification.  So  that  even  if  it  proved  necessary  to  con- 
clude that  illusion  and  hallucination  are  due  to  modifications  of 
the  stimulus  by  the  reacting  organism,  this  very  conclusion  would 
imply  the  preexisting  and  independent  character  of  the  body  in 
which  the  stimulus  originated. 

5.  In  immediate  and  intimate  connection  with  this  doctrine 
of  the  independence  of  things  known  and  the  knowing  of  them, 
stands  another  special  doctrine  —  to  the  effect  that  the  content 
of  knowledge,  that  which  lies  in  or  before  the  mind  when  knowledge 
takes  place,  is  numerically  identical  with  the  thing  known. 
Knowledge  by  intermediaries  is  not  denied,  but  is  made  subordi- 


REALISM  AS  A  CONSTRUCTIVE   PHILOSOPHY    35 

nate  to  direct  or  presentative  knowledge.  There  is  no  special 
class  of  entities,  qualitatively  or  substantively  distinguished  from 
all  other  entities,  as  the  media  of  knowledge.  In  the  end  all 
things  are  known  through  being  themselves  brought  directly  into 
that  relation  in  which  they  are  said  to  be  witnessed  or  apprehended. 
In  other  words,  things  when  consciousness  is  had  of  them  become 
themselves  contents  of  consciousness;  and  the  same  things  thus 
figure  both  in  the  so-called  external  world  and  in  the  manifold 
which  introspection  reveals. 

6.  Finally,  because  he  regards  analysis  and  conception  as  means 
of  access  to  reality,  and  not  as  transformations  or  falsifications  of 
it,  and  because  he  asserts  the  independence  of  reality  in  the  know- 
ing of  it,  the  neo-realist  is  also  a  Platonic  realist.     He  accords  full 
ontological  status  to  the  things  of  thought  as  well  as  to  the  things 
of  sense,  to  logical  entities  as  well  as  physical  entities,  or  to  sub- 
sistents  as  well  as  existents. 

7.  In  short,  for  realists,  knowledge  plays  its  part  within  an  in- 
dependent environment.     When  that  environment  is  known  it  is 
brought  into  direct  relations  with  some  variety  of  agency  or  pro- 
cess, which  is  the  knower.     The  knower  however  is  homogeneous 
with  the  environment,  belonging  to  one  cosmos  with  it,  as  does  an 
attracting  mass,  or  physical  organism,  and  may  itself  be  known  as 
are  the  things  it  knows.     The  world  is  of  an  articulate  structure 
that  is  revealed  by  analysis,  consisting  of  complexes,  like  bodies, 
persons,  and  societies,  as  well  as  of  simples.      The  simple  con- 
stituents of  the  world  comprise  both  sensible  qualities  and  logical 
constants.     Both  enter  into  the  tissue  of  fact,  and  both  possess 
an  inherent  and  inalienable  character  of  their  own.     There  is  no 
safe  refuge  from  this  conclusion  in  any  abandonment  of  intellec- 
tual rigor.     Hence  all  speculative  versions  of  the  world  that  re- 
quire the  withholding  of  analysis,  or  that  depend  on  the  unique 
and  preeminent  status  of  the  act  of  cognition,  must  be  rejected, 
no  matter  how  eagerly  they  may  be  desired  for  the  justification 
of  faith.     They  must  be  rejected  in  favor  of  such  hypotheses  as 
may  be  formulated  in  terms  of  the  evident  composition  of  the 


36  INTRODUCTION 

known  world,  and  verified  by  its  actual  interrelations,  history,  and 
trend. 

These  conclusions  in  the  aggregate  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be 
negative.  It  is  true  that  they  constitute  neither  a  complete  phi- 
losophy, nor,  even  so  far  as  they  go,  an  absolutely  systematic  phi- 
losophy. But  that  a  philosophy  should  be  absolutely  systematic 
in  the  sense  of  being  deducible  from  one  principle  is  itself  a  philo- 
sophical doctrine  that  the  realist  is  by  no  means  prepared  to  adopt. 
Moreover  that  his  philosophy  should  be  as  yet  incomplete  is,  to  the 
realist  at  least,  a  wholesome  incentive,  rather  than  a  ground  for 
uneasiness.  There  are  endless  special  philosophical  questions 
to  which  there  is  no  inevitable  realistic  answer,  such  questions  as 
mind  and  body,  teleology,  the  good,  and  freedom;  and  there  is 
as  yet  no  general  realistic  philosophy  of  life,  no  characteristic 
verdict  on  the  issues  of  religion.  Nevertheless,  the  foundations 
and  the  scaffolding  of  the  realistic  universe  are  already  built ;  and 
it  is  even  possible  for  some  to  live  in  it  and  feel  at  home. 


REALISM  AND   THE   SPECIAL   SCIENCES 

1.  IT  is  the  earnest  hope  of  those  who  have  identified  themselves 
with  this  movement,  that  it  may  afford  a  basis  for  a  more  profit- 
able intercourse  with  the  special  sciences  than  that  which  has  lat- 
terly obtained.  There  are  common  problems  which  have  been 
hitherto  obscured  by  a  radical  difference  of  method,  and  an  in- 
commensurability of  terms.  So  long  as  philosophy  is  simply  the 
exploitation  of  a  unique  and  supreme  insight  of  its  own,  it  remains 
either  irrelevant  to  the  special  sciences  or,  through  its  claim  of 
superiority,  a  source  of  irritation  and  an  object  of  suspicion.  Such 
has,  to  some  extent,  at  least,  been  the  case  during  the  later  philo- 
sophical regime.  Idealists  have  benevolently  assimilated  science 
to  a  universal  consciousness ;  irrationalists  have  appealed  to  revela- 
tion for  insight  that  overrules  and  makes  naught  of  all  the  hard- 


REALISM  AND  THE  SPECIAL  SCIENCES          37 

won  truths  of  science.  In  either  case,  science  is  not  helped  by 
philosophy,  but  after  being  allowed  to  do  the  work  of  truth  finding, 
is  graciously  assigned  to  headquarters  labeled '  Appearance '  or '  Mere 
Description/  where  it  may  enjoy  the  patronage  of  a  superior. 

Realism  advances  no  all-inclusive  conception  under  which  science 
as  a  body  may  be  subsumed ;  it  claims  no  special  revelation,  and 
asks  no  immunity  from  the  pains  of  observation  and  analysis. 
What  is  thus  lost  of  eminence  and  authority,  may,  it  is  hoped, 
be  made  up  by  a  more  cordial  and  profitable  association  with 
fellow-workers  in  a  common  task.  For,  after  all,  the  division  of 
the  disciplines  is  less  significant  than  the  identity  of  problems  and 
the  singleness  of  purpose  that  should  animate  all  rigorous  seekers 
after  knowledge.  Consciousness,  life,  infinity,  and  continuity 
are  genuine  and  identical  topics  of  investigation,  whether  they 
happen  to  be  alluded  to  by  psychologists,  biologists,  logicians,  and 
mathematicians,  or  by  philosophers.  And  it  is  reasonable  to  hope 
that  the  difference  of  training  and  aptitude  between  the  special 
scientist  and  the  philosopher  should  yield  a  summation  of  light, 
rather  than  misunderstanding  and  confusion. 

2.  Thus  psychology,  for  example,  has  for  its  very  subject  mat- 
ter the  concrete  process  of  consciousness,  and  is  therefore  vitally 
concerned  in  anything  true  which  philosophy  has  to  say  about 
consciousness  in  general.  But  the  alleged  discovery  of  subjectiv- 
ism, that  all  things  are  mental,  is  so  untrue  to  the  phenomena  on 
which  psychology  has  to  work,  that  this  science  has  been  brought 
thereby  to  a  peculiar  state  of  embarrassment.  In  the  concrete 
processes  of  perception  and  cognition,  the  corpus  vile  of  psychology, 
the  stimuli,  howsoever  'mental'  they  may  be  in  some  last  and 
remote  analysis,  are  assuredly  not  mental  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
correlated  sensations  and  ideas  are  so.  Precisely  because  the 
psychologist  has  to  accept  the  direct  evidence  for  the  existence  of 
particular  minds,  he  can  take  no  part  in  the  conspiracy  to  make  of 
mind  a  universal  predicate. 

The  result  is  that  idealism  has  meant  nothing  to  the  actual 
psychologist,  who  has  in  his  laboratory  remained  a  Cartesian  dual- 


38  INTRODUCTION 

1st.  And  it  is  unmistakable  that  the  results  of  the  study  of  the 
soul  are  to-day,  and  have  been  through  the  last  three  centuries, 
read  off  and  tabulated  in  terms  of  two  substances  —  matter  and 
mind.  Sensations  and  ideas,  alleged  to  be  peculiar  and  private 
to  each  percipient,  are  conceived  as  invisible  pawns  which  are  cor- 
related one-to-one  with  the  '  brain-cells '  or  other  cerebral  structures, 
and  are  superfluous  to  the  actual  processes  of  the  brain  in  spite  of 
frantic  efforts  to  assign  to  them  some  regulative  function;  and 
they  have  none  but  the  most  chimerical  and  unstatable  relations 
to  the  outer  objects  which  these  pawns  are  said  to  represent.  The 
supposed  need  of  interpreting  the  results  of  empirical  psychology, 
or  rather  of  'observing'  all  mental  processes  in  terms  of  two  sub- 
stances, has  thoroughly  stultified  the  science  as  a  whole.  The 
artificial  and  unsupportable  situations  to  which  this  course  has 
led  are  numerous,  but  one  in  particular  is  so  preposterous  and 
unendurable  that  it  alone  would  demand  a  complete  revision  of 
the  current  'presuppositions'  of  psychology.  This  is  the  concrete 
situation  when  two  persons  are  making  a  psychological  experiment. 
One  is  called  the  experimenter,  the  other  the  observer  or  'subject,' 
and  between  them  lie  the  instruments  for  giving  stimuli  and  re- 
cording results.  The  experimenter,  by  hypothesis,  has  direct  and 
immediate  knowledge  of  these  instruments  and  in  particular  of 
the  stimuli  which  he  employs.  By  hypothesis  the  observer,  al- 
though similarly  a  human  being  with  the  same  gift  of  cognition, 
has  not  a  direct  or  immediate  apprehension  of  these  instruments 
and  stimuli,  but  this  observer's  knowledge  is  limited  to  the  field 
of  invisible  pawns  which  'represent'  the  stimuli,  and  which  en- 
joy an  otherwise  inscrutable  status  of  one-to-oneness  with  some 
structures  within  the  observer's  skull.  So  the  situation  is  inter- 
preted, until  presently  the  two  experimenters  exchange  their  rolls, 
whereupon  by  a  process  of  magic  the  just-now  observer  acquires 
a  direct  apprehension  of  the  instruments  of  stimulation,  the  scales 
have  fallen  from  his  eyes  and  are  adjusted  to  the  other  man's,  whose 
conscious  field  now  shrivels  and  is  merely  the  fitful  flux  of  the  in- 
tracerebral  and  invisible  pawns. 


REALISM  AND  THE   SPECIAL  SCIENCES          39 

This  is  the  situation  which  attends  every  psychological  experi- 
ment in  which  two  persons  take  part.  It  is  absurd,  and  can  be 
mitigated  only  by  a  theory  which  gives  a  satisfactory  epistemologi- 
cal  status  to  the  'outer  objects'  which  are  the  terms  common  to 
all  human  experiences.  Neither  dualism  nor  idealism  provides 
such  a  status.  This  condition  of  things  is  sufficient  to  induce  the 
psychologist  to  look  toward  realism;  and  yet  this  is  merely  one 
of  several  insupportable  results  attendant  on  a  dualistic  psychology. 
In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  any  argument  which  makes  dualism 
indefensible  in  philosophy  makes  it  concretely  intolerable  in 
psychology.  Psychology  has  not  yet  found  the  right  fundamental 
categories,  and  will  not  find  them  as  long  as  dualism  continues  to 
hold  sway.  Meanwhile  its  particular  findings  lie  accumulated  in 
incoordinated  heaps  and  investigators  are  beginning  to  sense  an 
impasse,  and  are  somewhat  inconsequently  turning  away  to  various 
forms  of  an  '  applied '  science. 

3.  A  similar  state  of  things  exists  in  biology ;  for  here  a  real- 
istic philosophical  basis  is  even  more  clearly  presupposed.  Indeed, 
the  realistic  point  of  view  and  all  its  fundamental  propositions  may 
be  served  on  the  biologist  as  a  mandamus;  for  to  him  are  assigned 
such  problems  as  the  origins  of  life,  the  origins  of  species,  the  man- 
ners of  growth,  of  variation,  and  of  adaptation.  Now  each  and 
every  one  of  these  problems  presents  a  situation  wherein  there  is 
an  environment  independent  of  a  given  creature  which  is  being 
affected  by  that  environment  and  is,  in  turn,  manipulating  itself 
and  parts  of  the  environment.  Such  a  world  is  realistic ;  it  is  no 
piece  of  human  imagery,  and  its  texture  is  made  of  other  stuff 
than  mere  thoughts.  It  is  full  of  minds  which  it  has  somehow 
made  and  which  it,  by  a  mere  invisible  lesion,  can  destroy. 

As  with  the  world,  so  with  the  organisms  in  it.  They  are  not 
the  products  of  the  minds  they  bear.  Although  these  minds  do  not 
even  suspect  the  form  and  flux  of  their  sustaining  organs,  yet  the 
latter  operate,  day  and  night,  indifferent  to  that  ignorance.  They 
are  as  independent  of  the  mind  as  is  the  wind  which  sighs  around 
the  house  while  the  mind  sleeps. 


40  INTRODUCTION 

It  is  true  that  many  biologists  look  with  favor  upon  idealistic 
doctrines,  which,  if  accepted,  would  lead  to  absurdities.  They 
have  applied  them  only  half-heartedly  though  and  thereby  be- 
fuddled many  questions,  notably  that  of  vitalism  versus  mechan- 
ism. So  far  have  some  of  them  gone  with  the  doctrine  that  things 
are  'mental  constructs,'  that  they  have  projected  conscious  intel- 
ligence the  whole  organic  process.  But  they  cannot  doubt  that 
an  organism  is  needed  to  produce  a  'mental  state.'  Thus  Pauly 
cannot  understand  how  an  organism  could  ever  'grow'  eyes, 
unless  the  cause  of  the  growth  also  had  eyes.  Nothing,  he  vir- 
tually argues,  can  be  done  unless  the  deed  is  known  beforehand  in 
detail ;  though  to  know  it,  the  knower  behind  the  organism  must 
in  turn  have  a  perceiving  mechanism.  It  is  to  avoid  such  bewil- 
derment that  realism  wishes  to  join  hands  with  the  cautious  biol- 
ogists. 

4.  If  realism  can  afford  assistance  and  clarification  to  psychology 
and  biology,  this  is  no  less  the  case  with  logic  and  the  mathemati- 
cal sciences.  At  the  present  time  these  latter  sciences  suffer 
chiefly  from  a  confusing  admixture  of  psychology.  This  confusion 
takes  two  forms,  as  illustrated  by  the  case  of  logic.  On  the  one 
hand,  logic  as  a  science  of  such  entities  as  terms,  propositions, 
propositional  functions,  etc.,  is  confused  with  the  study  of  the  art 
and  processes  of  thought.  On  the  other  hand,  logic  as  a  science 
of  implication  and  necessity  is  confused  with  the  study  of  the  his- 
torical genesis  of  knowledge.  Realism  frees  logic  as  a  study  of 
objective  fact  from  all  accounts  of  the  states  or  operations  of  mind. 

For  the  realist  there  are  empirical  grounds  for  holding  that  the 
object  known  is  independent  of  and  may  be  dissimilar  to  the  cog- 
nitive process.  Cognition  can  be  eliminated.  It  is  discovery. 
Accordingly,  the  realist  is  an  open-minded  empiricist.  He  stands 
quite  ready  to  find  and  to  admit  that  anything  may  be  a  fact, 
that  any  kind  of  entity  may  exist,  or  subsist.  The  only  limitations 
are  a  posteriori.  For  the  realist,  the  study  of  the  knowing  process 
is  only  one  of  many  fields  of  investigation.  Logic,  arithmetic,  and 
mathematics  in  general  are  sciences  which  can  be  pursued  quite 


REALISM  AND  THE  SPECIAL  SCIENCES          41 

independently  of  the  study  of  knowing.  The  entities  with  which 
they  deal  are  not  physical ;  nor  are  they  mental.  They  are  sub- 
sistents  in  that  they  are  entities  notwithstanding  this  fact.  Thus 
these  sciences  investigate  neither  physical  nor  mental  entities, 
but  have  to  do  with  an  independent  and  objective  field  of  their 
own. 

5.  It  is  necessary  that  philosophy  should  raise  the  questions  of 
epistemology,  if  only  in  order  to  assign  them  a  subordinate  place. 
It  will  not  do  to  ignore  the  fact  of  knowledge  itself.  Sooner  or 
later,  the  knower  must  take  himself  into  the  account  and  become 
conscious  of  that  inward  relation  to  a  subjective  background  which, 
in  the  first  objective  or  outward  intent  of  knowledge,  is  naturally 
overlooked.  Realism  is  not  a  naive  or  blind  neglect  of  the  prob- 
lem. If  realism  concludes,  as  it  does,  that  the  knower  himself 
may,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  be  disregarded,  and  the  object 
be  explained  in  its  own  terms,  it  is  only  after  due  consideration  of 
the  matter.  The  right  so  to  disregard  the  subjective  conditions 
of  knowledge  is  an  achievement  of  critical  reflection. 

And  it  is  an  achievement  of  no  small  moment;  for  it  at  once 
establishes  the  full  rights  of  all  special  branches  of  knowledge. 
Philosophy  must,  it  is  true,  now  abandon  its  supposed  privilege 
of  radically  transforming  all  results  which  have  been  reached  with- 
out taking  knowledge  into  account.  Philosophy  can  no  longer 
condemn  such  results  as  necessarily  and  universally  false,  or  re- 
place them  with  a  higher  esoteric  truth,  which  is  revealed  only  to 
the  initiated.  The  disregard  of  epistemological  considerations 
which  is  characteristic  of  special  investigations  is  now  justified. 

But  what  philosophy  loses  in  prerogative,  it  gains  in  the  improve- 
ment of  its  relations  with  other  branches  of  knowledge.  It  may 
now  employ  the  results  of  the  special  sciences  as  they  stand.  This 
is  true  not  only  of  the  physical  sciences,  but  of  the  moral  sciences ; 
and  not  only  of  scientists  in  the  professional  sense,  but  of  all  ob- 
servers and  investigators  who  have  anything  to  report  concerning 
the  state  of  things  in  this  common  world.  In  other  words,  once 
subjectivism  and  mysticism  are  discredited,  the  work  of  philosophy 


42  INTRODUCTION 

becomes  continuous  with  that  of  all  who  have  chosen  to  limit 
more  narrowly  the  field  of  their  labors.  There  will  always  remain 
a  certain  difference  of  procedure  between  philosophers  and  spe- 
cialists. Philosophers  will  be  looked  to  for  breadth  of  generaliza- 
tion, for  refinement  of  criticism,  and  for  the  solution  of  such  prob- 
lems as  are  peculiarly  connected  with  the  limits  of  generalization 
and  criticism.  But,  even  so,  the  task  of  philosophy  is  not  radi- 
cally different  from  that  of  the  special  knowledges.  It  lies  on  the 
same  plane,  or  in  the  same  field.  It  is  a  difference  of  degree  and 
not  of  kind ;  a  difference  like  that  between  experimental  and  theo- 
retical physics,  between  zoology  and  biology,  or  between  juris- 
prudence and  political  science. 

Thus,  realism  proposes  that  philosophy  should  abandon  for  all 
time  that  claim  to  the  hereditary  exclusive  possession  of  truth 
which  was  made  in  the  first  days  of  its  youthful  arrogance.  Though 
philosophy  has  until  now  clung  tenaciously  to  that  dualism  of 
knowledge  by  which  Parmenides  assigned  to  philosophy  "the  un- 
shaken heart  of  persuasive  truth,"  and  left  for  the  less  privileged 
workers  in  the  field  of  empirical  facts  only  "the  opinions  of  mortals 
in  which  is  no  true  belief  at  all";  it  is  the  conviction  of  those 
who  have  undertaken  the  present  volume  that  the  way  of  all 
mortal  opinion,  in  so  far  as  it  is  honest  and  attested  by  evidence, 
is  the  way  of  truth. 


THE  EMANCIPATION   OF   METAPHYSICS   FROM 
EPISTEMOLOGY 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  METAPHYSICS  FROM 
EPISTEMOLOGY 

BY  WALTER  T.  MARVIN 
I 

THE  ISSUE   BETWEEN  DOGMATISM  AND   CRITICISM 

1.  THE  purpose  of  this  essay  is  to  present  some  arguments 
in  opposition  to  the  belief,  held  by  many  philosophers,  that  the 
science  which  investigates  the  nature,  the  possibility,  and  the 
limits  of  knowledge  is  fundamental  to  all  other  sciences  and  to  all 
other  scientific  procedure,  and  in  particular  that  this  science 
either  is  metaphysics  or  is  fundamental  to  metaphysics.1  As  a 
preliminary  to  our  discussion  we  must  clearly  understand  what  is 
meant  by  "one  science  being  fundamental  to  another."  To  an 
inquiry  concerning  the  meaning  of  the  words  "one  science  is 
fundamental  to  another,"  three  answers  appear  to  be  offered. 

First,  one  science  is  fundamental  to  another  when  it  is  logi- 
cally prior;  and  by  logical  priority  is  meant  that  relation  which 
holds  between  a  proposition  and  its  necessary  condition.  Thus 
if  A  implies  B  but  B  does  not  imply  A,  then  B  is  the  necessary 
condition  of  A ;  for  A's  truth  depends  upon  B's  truth.  That  is, 
should  B  prove  to  be  false,  A  must  be  false :  and  though  A  be 
false,  still  B  may  prove  true;  for  we  are  saying  merely  that  A's 
truth  is  a  sufficient  condition  of  B's  truth,  and  are  not  maintain- 
ing that  it  is  the  only  condition,  or  a  necessary  condition.  For 
example,  let  us  assume  it  to  be  true  that  if  the  tissues  of  a  man's 

1  Under  the  term  metaphysics  I  include  two  subjects :  (a)  the  study  of  the 
logical  foundations  of  science ;  (6)  the  theory  of  reality.  Here  and  throughout 
this  essay  I  mean  by  the  words,  theory  of  reality,  any  collection  of  fundamental 
existential  propositions  and  of  high  existential  generalizations. 

45 


46  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

body  absorb  a  certain  amount  of  arsenic,  he  must  die,  that  there 
is  no  preventing  cause  either  known  or  unknown.  Then  evi- 
dently for  it  to  be  true  that  this  man's  body  has  absorbed  such 
an  amount  of  arsenic,  it  must  be  true  that  the  man  is  dead ;  whereas 
the  mere  fact  of  his  death  does  not  prove  that  many  another  pos- 
sible cause  is  not  the  actual  cause.  In  short,  "the  man  is  dead" 
is  logically  prior  to  the  proposition,  the  tissues  of  his  body  have 
absorbed  the  required  quantity  of  arsenic.  But  let  us  illustrate 
specifically  the  logical  priority  of  one  science  to  another.  Much 
of  mathematics  is  logically  prior  to  mechanics  and  physics,  since 
much  of  these  latter  sciences  could  prove  false  without  thereby 
indicating  any  errors  in  our  pure  mathematical  theories;  but 
should  it  be  found  that  arithmetic,  the  calculus,  and  elemen- 
tary geometry  are  false,  evidently  our  mechanical  and  physical 
theories,  based  as  they  are  upon  these  sciences,  and  being  in  great 
part  explicit  deductions  from  them,  would  fall  to  the  ground. 
Of  course  there  may  be  other,  as  yet  totally  unknown,  ways  by 
which  mechanics  and  physics  can  be  demonstrated;  but  accord- 
ing to  our  present  knowledge,  unless  a  large  part  of  mathematics 
is  true,  mechanics  and  physics  must  be  false.  If  then  we  accept 
the  foregoing  as  the  meaning  of  the  word  'fundamental/  we  get 
as  the  first  answer  to  our  question :  In  calling  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge fundamental,  the  philosopher  means  that  it  is  logically 
prior  to  all  other  knowledge. 

2.  The  second  answer  offered  appears  to  be  different,  though 
a  closer  scrutiny  may  reveal  the  presence  of  the  same  conviction. 
"The  theory  of  knowledge  is  fundamental,"  means  not  only  that 
the  epistemologist  can  ascertain  through  his  science  the  limits 
of  possible  knowledge,  but  especially  that  he  can  do  so  without 
studying  the  various  special  sciences  or  the  history  of  science  and 
of  scientific  discovery,  or  without  in  any  way  going  for  informa- 
tion beyond  the  territory  of  his  own  science.  In  other  words, 
it  is  maintained  that  there  is  a  science  of  the  possibility  of  knowl- 
edge which  is  not  an  induction  from  men's  scientific  experience 
during  the  centuries  of  civilization  nor  from  the  sciences  as  they 


ISSUE  BETWEEN  DOGMATISM  AND  CRITICISM    47 

are  now  known,  but  which  is  a  direct,  independent,  and  final 
study  of  the  nature  and  limits  of  knowledge.  Indeed,  it  is  held 
that  unless  we  have  proven  in  this  way  the  possibility  of  any 
special  science,  such  a  science  is  mere  dogmatism ;  and  therefore 
that  he  only  is  a  critical  scientist  who  does  not  attempt  to  inves- 
tigate until  he  proves  to  himself  by  the  theory  of  knowledge  that 
what  he  hopes  to  discover  and  to  explain  is  a  possible  object 
of  knowledge. 

Of  course  the  writer  has  in  mind  especially  Kant  and  his  '  Cri- 
tique of  Pure  Reason.'  He  it  was  who  taught,  as  no  other  man  has 
taught,  that  dogmatism  and  criticism  are  forever  irreconcilable, 
that  one  science,  the  science  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge,  can 
ascertain  what  are  and  what  are  not  problems  which  the  human 
mind  can  solve.  He  thought  that  the  older  metaphysicians, 
who  were  either  ignorant  or  careless  of  these  matters,  were  led 
hopelessly  into  error  precisely  because  they  undertook  to  solve 
their  problems  before  they  wrote  or  studied  a  critique  of  pure 
reason. 

Moreover,  note  well;  this  critique  of  pure  reason  is  not  a  his- 
tory of  the  successes  and  failures  of  scientists,  nor  is  it  a  summary  of 
what  in  the  course  of  human  history  have  proved  solvable  and 
insolvable  problems.  Rather  it  is  a  direct  study  of  the  nature  of 
knowledge  in  the  abstract  and  of  the  behavior  of  the  human  in- 
tellect; and  its  conclusions  are  said  to  be  drawn  from  this  study 
without  the  aid  of  the  other  sciences.  On  this  account  its  results 
are  believed  to  be  independent  of  the  special  sciences  and  au- 
thoritative over  them ;  whereas  if  it  drew  its  information  from  them 
or  were  itself  a  mere  induction  from  human  experience,  it  would 
be  admittedly  a  vicious  circle. 

3.  The  third  answer  informs  us  that  in  calling  the  theory  of 
knowledge  fundamental  the  philosopher  asserts  that  this  science 
can  enable  us  to  ascertain  the  validity  of  the  special  sciences 
and  of  their  methods,  and  in  certain  respects  at  least  can  enable 
us  even  to  correct  their  results.  For  example,  if  a  science  offers 
us  a  solution  of  some  problem  which  we  know  to  be  insolvable, 


48  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

or  asserts  what  is  beyond  the  possibility  of  human  knowledge, 
we  can  infer  at  once  that  this  part  of  such  a  science  must  be  in- 
valid. But  this  is  by  no  means  all  that  is  referred  to  in  the  third 
meaning  of  the  word,  'fundamental.'  Rather  we  are  given  to 
understand  that  the  theory  of  knowledge  offers  us  information 
regarding  reality,  and  that  this  information  is  of  great  value  in 
two  respects ;  it  is  more  certainly  true  than  are  the  results  of  the 
special  sciences,  and  it  is  a  means  of  refuting,  correcting,  and 
limiting  these  results.  For  example,  if  a  study  of  the  nature  of 
knowledge  shows  that  the  universe  must  be  an  organic  unity; 
it  can  be  inferred  that  should  the  sciences  indicate  the  opposite, 
they  are  at  the  best  only  relatively  or  partly  true.  Again,  if  a 
study  of  knowledge  shows  that  only  mental  contents  can  be  known, 
that  an  object  to  be  known  must  be  part  of  the  mind's  experi- 
ence; then  it  can  be  inferred  directly  without  further  evidence 
from  science  that  reality  as  far  as  it  is  knowable  must  be  the 
experience  of  some  mind.  Then  if  in  addition  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge shows  that  whatever  is  essentially  unknowable  cannot  be 
real;  we  reach  the  conclusion,  reality  as  such  is  the  experience  of 
one  or  more  minds,  and  only  that.  Hence,  should  popular  opinion 
and  scientific  inference  assert  in  opposition  to  this  that  things 
exist  which  cannot  be  experienced  or  which  belong  to  no  one's 
experience,  such  doctrines  would  be  subject  to  correction  by  our 
fundamental  science. 

Still  again,  if  it  be  true,  as  some  epistemologists  have  taught, 
that  the  mind  in  knowing  gives  a  form  to  the  objects  known  and 
consequently  that  whatever  is  known  must  have  this  form  or 
structure;  then  their  science  can  lay  down  for  all  time  to  come 
the  main  outlines  of  the  world  as  the  possible  object  of  scientific 
research.  Should  the  physicist  or  any  other  scientist  ever  quar- 
rel with  this  outline  furnished  by  our  philosopher,  it  will  be  our 
duty  to  inquire  whether  or  not  he  is  a  student  of  the  theory  of 
knowledge  and  has  made  a  discovery  in  that  field.  Should  it 
prove  that  he  is  not  an  epistemologist,  but  just  a  physicist,  mathe- 
matician, or  chemist;  our  philosopher  will  tell  him  that  he  is  not 


ISSUE  BETWEEN  DOGMATISM  AND  CRITICISM    49 

competent  to  talk  about  ultimate  reality,  for  his  science  may 
indeed  give  useful  information,  but  cannot  give  any  independent 
and  fundamental  insight  into  what  is  and  what  is  not  ultimately 
real.  For  example,  it  has  been  claimed  by  one  epistemologist 
or  another  that  the  world  as  an  object  of  knowledge  must  be  a 
three-dimensional  spatial  system,  a  temporal  system,  a  causal 
system,  a  system  of  sense  impressions,  a  society  of  minds,  an 
organic  unity,  an  infinite  and  perfect  personal  mind,  a  divine 
language  by  which  God  sends  us  messages,  a  battlefield  created 
by  the  mind  wherein  the  will  may  fight  for  the  moral  ideals,  the 
dreary,  hopeless  outcome  of  the  struggles  of  an  impersonal,  blind 
and  restless  will,  an  evolution  of  an  absolute  mind.  Negatively 
it  has  been  held  by  one  philosopher  or  another  as  the  result  of 
his  study  of  the  nature  of  knowledge,  that  matter  does  not  truly 
exist,  that  colors  and  sounds,  heat  and  cold,  do  not  exist  outside 
the  mind,  that  scientific  laws  are  not  truly  parts  of  nature,  that 
the  real  world  cannot  be  known. 

4.  Let  us  sum  up  briefly  these  three  meanings  of  the  state- 
ment, "the  theory  of  knowledge  is  fundamental,"  in  the  following 
propositions:    First,  the  theory  of  knowledge  is   logically  prior 
to  all  other  knowledge;    secondly,  one  can  by  a  direct  study  of 
the  knowing  process  infer  the  limits  of  possible  knowledge;  and 
thirdly,  the  student  of  epistemology  can  give  us,  independently 
of  all  other  sciences,  a  theory  of  reality.     By  no  means  do  I  claim 
that  these  three  propositions  cannot  be  and  should  not  be  further 
analyzed  and  reduced  to  one,  namely  to  the  first ;  rather,  I  believe 
precisely  this:  but  for  the  purpose  of  the  present  argument  it  is 
better  to  leave  them  as  they  stand. 

5.  In  opposition  to  these  beliefs  in  the  fundamental   charac- 
ter of  the  theory  of  knowledge,  this  essay  will  support  directly  or 
indirectly  the  truth  of  the  following  propositions :    (a)  first,  that  the 
theory  of  knowledge  is  not  logically  fundamental,  that  on  the  con- 
trary its  logical  position  is  posterior  to  many  of  the  special  sciences, 
such  as  physics  and  biology ;    (&)  secondly,  that  the  theory  of 
knowledge  does  not  enable  us  to  show,  except  inductively  and  em- 


50  METAPHYSICS  AND   EPISTEMOLOGY 

pirically,  either  what  knowledge  is  possible  or  how  it  is  possible, 
or  again,  what  are  the  limits  of  human  knowledge;  (c)  thirdly, 
that  no  light  is  thrown  by  the  theory  of  knowledge  upon  the  na- 
ture of  the  existent  world  or  upon  the  fundamental  postulates  and 
generalizations  of  science,  except  in  as  far  as  the  knowledge  of  one 
natural  event  or  object  enables  us  sometimes  to  draw  inferences 
regarding  certain  others;  (d)  fourthly,  that  epistemology  does 
not  give  us  a  theory  of  reality,  on  the  contrary, -it  assumes  one ; 
(e)  finally,  that  it  neither  solves  metaphysical  problems  nor  is  it 
the  chief  source  of  such  problems.  One  may  express  all  of  this 
affirmatively  as  follows.  I  shall  try  to  show  three  things:  (a) 
first,  that  the  theory  of  knowledge  is  one  of  the  special  sciences, 
that  it  studies  knowledge  as  a  natural  event  and  in  virtually  the 
same  way  and  by  the  same  methods  as  biology  studies  life  or 
physics  light ;  (6)  secondly,  that  as  such  a  science,  it  assumes  the 
formulae  of  logic  and  the  results  of  several  special  sciences,  such 
as  physics  and  biology;  (c)  and  finally,  that  logic,  metaphysics, 
and  some  existential  sciences  are  logically  prior  to  the  theory  of 
knowledge. 

6.  In  short,  the  general  conclusion  which  I  shall  draw  is  that 
metaphysics  is  logically  prior  to  the  theory  of  knowledge  and 
that  it  is  not  peculiarly  indebted  to  this  science  either  for  its 
problems  or  for  their  solution.  If  this  conclusion  is  true,  then 
metaphysics  should  be  completely  emancipated  from  epistemology ; 
for  the  sway  that  this  science  has  held  over  metaphysics  from  the 
days  of  Locke  to  our  own  time  is  a  thoroughly  unconstitutional 
assumption  of  authority.  Thus  in  a  certain  respect  I  am  urging 
a  return  to  the  old  days  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to  the  days 
of  Descartes,  Spinoza,  and  Leibniz,  to  the  method  that  Kant  con- 
demned as  dogmatism.  Indeed,  let  us  for  the  sake  of  brevity  ac- 
cept throughout  this  essay  Kant's  terms  to  indicate  the  two  oppos- 
ing tendencies.  In  a  narrow  and  technical  meaning  of  the  words, 
the  one  tendency  is  dogmatic  and  its  doctrines  are  dogmatism,1 

1  It  should  be  distinctly  understood  by  the  reader  that  the  word  dogmatism 
is  used  throughout  this  essay  in  the  narrow  and  precise  sense  above  denned.  The 


EPISTEMOLOGY  NOT  FUNDAMENTAL  51 

whereas  the  teachings  of  the  opposed  tendency  are  criticism 
and  their  defenders  are  criticists. 

II 

THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  IS  NOT  LOGICALLY  FUNDA- 
MENTAL 

1.  THE  first  and  most  prominent  tenet  of  the  criticist  may 
be  stated  thus :  Inasmuch  as  all  sciences  are  cases  of  knowl- 
edge, the  science  which  investigates  knowledge  as  such  is  funda- 
mental and  is,  both  in  fact  and  by  right,  a  critique  of  all  science. 
Underlying  this  doctrine  the  dogmatist  finds,  or  at  least  suspects, 

name  is  taken  from  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  where,  whatever  else  it  may 
mean,  it  denotes  the  contradictory  of  what  Kant  calls  criticism.  Unfortunately, 
the  word  has  other  associations  in  Kant's  mind  and  in  the  mind  of  the  student  of 
Kant ;  for  it  sometimes  means  specifically  the  rationalistic  ontology  of  the  Cartesian 
and  Leibrdzian  philosophers,  whereas  neo-realism  differs  radically  from  this  phi- 
losophy. For  example,  many  neo-realists  have  a  strong  tendency  toward  an  extreme 
empiricism  and  toward  an  abandonment  of  the  substance-attribute  notion  as  a 
fundamental  notion  in  metaphysics.  Again,  neo-realism  is  epistemological  monism  ; 
whereas  the  Cartesians  were  epistemological  dualists,  holding  to  a  representative 
rather  than  a  presentative  theory  of  perception.  Finally,  a  modern  dogmatism 
must  of  necessity  differ  from  that  of  the  earlier  centuries  just  because  it  has  behind 
it  two  centuries  of  experience  with  criticism.  That  is,  it  is  consciously  and  de- 
liberately dogmatic,  whereas  the  earlier  dogmatism  was  naive  and  was  therefore 
easily  misled  into  idealism  and  its  so-called  criticism.  But  in  spite  of  these  unfortu- 
nate associations  I  believe  the  names  dogmatism  and  criticism  not  only  appropriate 
but  enlightening ;  for  I  think  the  neo-realistic  movement  to  be  a  reaction  against 
the  whole  enterprise  of  Locke,  Kant,  and  their  followers  to  get  at  a  fundamental 
science  and  not  merely  against  their  idealism.  That  is,  neo-realism  is  not  only  a 
different  theory  of  knowledge  but,  what  is  more  important  for  metaphysics,  a 
different  doctrine  as  to  the  place  of  epistemology  in  the  hierarchy  of  the  sciences. 
As  the  names  realism  and  idealism  do  not  point  out  this  difference  clearly;  I  prefer 
the  names  dogmatism  and  criticism,  which,  if  taken  in  their  generic  meanings  as 
given  by  Kant,  certainly  indicate  precisely  this  difference.  Indeed,  I  would  go 
further ;  for  many  contemporary  realists  are  criticists,  and  it  is  at  least  conceivable, 
no  matter  how  remarkable,  that  some  dogmatists  may  be  idealists.  My  points 
may  be  summed  up  briefly  in  the  following  two  sentences.  Dogmatism  is  the  con- 
tradictory of  criticism  and  defines  neo-realism  negatively  or  by  exclusion.  Chiefly 
and  perhaps  only  in  this  respect  is  neo-realism  a  return  to  seventeenth  century 
philosophy. 


52  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

two  errors,  on  the  one  hand  the  assumption  of  a  false  theory  re- 
garding the  nature  of  logic,  and  on  the  other  a  failure  to  distin- 
guish between  two  uses  of  the  word  'knowledge,'  that  which 
denotes  the  act  of  knowing  and  that  which  refers  to  the  truths 
or  propositions  known. 

2.  To  many  philosophers  logic  still  seems  to  be  a  science  of 
the  knowing  process,  or  more  precisely,  a  science  of  the  laws  of 
thought,  that  is,  of  the  rules  dictated  by  the  mind's  own  nature 
and  obeyed  by  us  whenever  we  think  correctly;    whereas  logic 
is  nothing  of  the  sort.     The  formulae  of  logic  are  no  more  laws  of 
thought  than  is  the  undulatory  theory  of  light,  the  Mendelian 
law  of  heredity,  or  for  that  matter  a  recipe  for  cake  or  even  an 
adding  machine.     Logic  gives  us  no  information  in  particular 
regarding  the  mind  or  the  thinking  process;    and  the  logician's 
views  on  such  subjects  might  be  quite  erroneous  without  leading 
him  astray  within  his  proper  field. 

3.  What  then  is  logic  ?    And  I  mean  by  logic  not  only  the  re- 
sults of  recent  study,  which  the  reader  may  or  may  not  value  highly, 
but  also  the  ancient  doctrines  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  Aris- 
totle and  in  the  textbooks  of  past  centuries.     The  logician  offers 
us,  as  does  any  other  scientist,  information  regarding  certain  terms 
and  their  relations.     Some  of  these  terms  are  classes,  and  some 
of  these  relations  are  the  relations  obtaining  between  classes  and 
their  members  or  between  one  class  and  other  classes.     Further, 
some  terms  studied  in  logic  are  propositions,  and  propositions 
are  found  to  be   related  in  a  way  called  implication.     Therefore 
the  logician  tries  to  learn  the  ways  in  which  one  proposition  can 
be  related  by  implication  to  another.     Finally,  logic  deals  with  a 
number  of  fundamentally  different  sorts  of  relation.     As  the  logi- 
cian puts  it,  some  are  transitive,  some  intransitive,  some  sym- 
metrical, some  asymmetrical,  and  so  on. 

4.  Now  in  all  of  this  logic  is  studying  something  non-mental 
in  the  same  sense  as  does  mathematics  or  chemistry.     There  are 
in  the  world  about  us  classes  and  these  classes  are  related.     There 
are  such  things  as  truths  and  falsehoods  and  these  as  such  are 


EPISTEMOLOGY  NOT  FUNDAMENTAL  53 

related  to  one  another.  Moreover,  they  are  so  related  quite 
apart  from  any  question  of  human  existence  or  human  thought. 
"  Two  plus  two  equals  fourteen,"  was  false  fifty  million  years  ago ; 
and  the  fact  that  it  was  false,  made  the  world  of  that  day  a  very 
different  world  from  what  it  would  otherwise  have  been.  Thus  to 
the  best  of  our  knowledge,  the  fact  that  one  proposition  implies 
another  is  not  merely  a  pleasant  and  playful  thought  of  this  man 
or  that,  but  it  is  a  downright  serious  matter.  It  seems  to  deter- 
mine what  happens  in  this  world  about  us,  it  seems  to  determine 
whether  a  man  shall  die  or  live,  shall  be  born  or  not  be  born, 
shall  be  happy  or  utterly  wretched.  It  seems  to  determine  even 
whether  a  solar  system  shall  go  along  peacefully  and  evolve  habit- 
able planets,  or  shall  go  to  smash  and  end  in  chaos.  There  may 
be  some  sense  in  which  all  of  these  things  are  mental;  that  is, 
some  sense  in  which  astronomy,  physics,  chemistry,  biology, 
geology,  and  what  not  other  science  is  a  study  of  human  knowl- 
edge and  of  the  knowing  process.  All  well  and  good;  if  such  be 
the  case,  no  doubt  logic  is  so  too;  but  if  in  other  respects  they 
are  not  such  a  study,  then  neither  is  logic.  The  nature  of  the 
physical  universe  depends  upon  whether  or  not  logic  is  true  as 
genuinely  as  it  does  upon  the  truth  of  this  or  that  physical  theory. 
Therefore  the  logician  has  a  right  to  say:  "When  I  study  classes 
and  their  relations,  or  propositions  and  their  relations,  I  am 
studying  aspects  of  the  world  about  me  as  truly  as  does  the  physi- 
cist when  he  studies  the  nature  of  light,  heat,  gravity,  and  elec- 
tricity." 

5.  "But,"  you  ask,  "is  not  logic  the  science  or  art  of  correct 
reasoning?  And  is  not  reasoning  a  mental  process?"  No,  logic 
is  not.  Of  course  there  is  such  a  study  or  art,  and  of  course  there 
is  excellent  authority  for  the  use  of  the  word  logic  as  the  name 
of  this  art.  But  the  art  called  logic,  when  examined  critically 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  pure  sciences,  is  a  conglomerate  of 
many  sciences  applied  to  solving  one  type  of  practical  problem. 
In  short,  it  is  the  application  of  information  from  many  scien- 
tific sources.  It  draws  on  pure  logic,  it  draws  on  psychology,  it 


54  METAPHYSICS   AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

draws  on  mathematics;    indeed,  I  decline  to  mention  the  pure 
science  upon  which  it  should  not  draw. 

6.  Yet  it  may  be  protested,  "In  all  our  reasoning  we  use  logic, 
therefore  logic  is  the  science  of  reasoning."  Such  an  argument 
is  fallacious,  and  what  is  more,  its  conclusion  is  false.  To  make  a 
long  story  short,  we  must  define  what  is  meant  in  this  argument 
by  the  word  'use,'  and  we  must  decline  from  the  start  to  reckon 
by  percentage  of  use  whether  or  not  this  or  that  science  or  part  of 
a  science  is  a  study  of  the  knowing  process.  Do  we  in  our  reason- 
ing use  logic  in  a  different  way  from  that  in  which  we  use  mathe- 
matics, physics,  chemistry,  or  astronomy?  Now  if  we  do  not, 
and  if  the  only  difference  is  that  we  use  some  parts  of  logic  every 
time  we  reason,  why  should  we  then  draw  the  line  at  one  hundred 
per  cent  (really  a  lesser  per  cent  for  parts  of  logic  may  be  used 
quite  infrequently  and  we  should  take  the  average)  and  not  at 
forty-five  per  cent?  Evidently  the  man  who  believes  logic  to 
be  a  science  of  reasoning  is  not  thinking  of  percentage  of  use. 
Rather  he  holds  that  the  use  our  reasoning  makes  of  logic  is  differ- 
ent from  the  use  our  minds  make  of  mathematics  or  chemistry. 
It  is  then  all  a  question  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  use. 

How  do  we  use  logic  in  our  reasoning?  I  reply,  in  the  same 
way  in  which  we  use  physics.  How  is  that?  We  make  use  of 
the  laws  or  propositions  of  physics  as  premises  or  as  formulae  for 
whose  variables  we  substitute  constants.  Let  me  illustrate.  I  want 
to  know  how  far  a  projectile  will  go  if  it  leaves  the  ground  at  a 
given  angle  and  at  a  given  velocity.  Physics  gives  me  formulae 
from  which,  if  I  use  as  premises  along  with  the  given  conditions  also 
used  as  premises,  I  can  infer  the  proposition  which  I  wish  to  know. 
Again,  mathematics  tells  me  (a  +  ft)2  =  a2  +  2  ab  +  b2.  I  want 
to  know  the  square  of  27.  How  then  do  I  use  (in  my  reasoning) 
this  information?  We  substitute,  let  us  say,  for  a  20  and  for 
b  7;  that  is,  we  substitute  constants  for  the  variables  in  the  equa- 
tion. Thus  (20  +  7)2  =  400  +  280  +  49  =  729.  Hence  to  use 
physics  or  any  other  exact  or  natural  science  in  our  reasoning  is 
to  adopt  its  propositions  as  premises,  Now  is  the  same  thing 


EPISTEMOLOGY  NOT  FUNDAMENTAL  55 

true  when  we  use  logic  in  our  reasoning?  It  is.  The  results  or 
truths  of  logic  are  assertions,  as  we  have  said,  regarding  the  re- 
lations of  classes  and  propositions.  Further,  these  results  of 
logic  are  usually  formulse,  that  is,  propositions  whose  terms  are 
variables.  Thus,  roughly  stated,  if  any  class  a  is  contained  in 
another  class  b,  and  if  this  class  6  in  turn  is  contained  in  a  third 
class  c,  then  the  first  class  a  is  contained  in  the  third  class  c ;  or 
more  precisely  stated,  [(a  <b)(b<  c)]  implies  (a  <  c),  where  a,  6,  c, 
represent  any  class.  Here  is  a  logical  formula  taken  from  the 
logic  of  classes.  How  do  we  use  it  in  our  reasoning?  Assuming 
it  as  true,  we  substitute  constants  for  its  variables.  For  example, 
if  this  formula  is  true,  and  if  the  class  men  is  included  in  the  class 
mortals,  and  if  Socrates  is  a  member  of  the  class  men,  then  Soc- 
rates is  a  member  of  the  class  mortals.  Every  student  will  agree 
that  logic  is  not  concerned  with  Socrates  or  man  but  with  some- 
thing more  general.  But  notice  what  this  means:  Logic  is  con- 
cerned with  variables.  It  gives  us  formulae.  If  so,  and  if  we  use 
logic  always  in  our  reasoning,  we  shall  find,  no  matter  what  in- 
stance of  reasoning  we  may  take  instead  of  the  trite  example  afore- 
given,  that  some  formula  is  presupposed  by  it.  That  a  formula 
is  presupposed  means  that  it  is  assumed  as  a  premise  which 
we  have  used  by  substituting  constants  in  place  of  its  varia- 
bles. In  short,  to  use  logic  means  to  substitute  in  a  formula  con- 
stants for  the  variables  of  the  formula  and  then  to  assert  one  of 
the  resulting  propositions,  namely,  the  one  found  in  that  part  of 
the  formula  called  the  conclusion.  But  this,  we  know,  is  pre- 
cisely what  we  do  when  we  use  physical  formulse  in  our  reasoning. 
7.  The  mere  fact  that  logical  formulae  are  used  so  widely,  the 
mere  fact  that  physics  itself  presupposes  parts  of  logic,  does  not 
alter  the  essential  nature  of  the  use.  It  would  be  perhaps  a  more 
serious  matter  to  have  logic  false  than  to  have  the  undulatory 
theory  of  light  false ;  but  of  what  true  proposition  can  we  not  say 
something  similar?  Practical  importance  then  does  not  deter- 
mine whether  or  not  a  science  is  actually  a  study  of  beasts,  rocks, 
stars,  or  ocean  currents ;  for  that  depends  upon  the  terms  to  be 


56  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

found  in  the  propositions  constituting  the  science.  So  too  in  the 
case  of  logic,  whether  or  not  logic  is  a  study  of  the  knowing  process 
depends  upon  what  terms  are  found  in  its  propositions.  Now  these 
terms  are  as  non-mental  as  are  rocks  and  ocean  currents.1  Hence, 
one  must  draw  the  general  conclusion :  Logic  is  not  a  science  of 
the  knowing  process.  Its  principles  and  formulae  are  not  laws 
of  thought.  Its  terms  and  relations  are  as  clearly  distinct  from 
those  of  thought  as  are  the  terms  and  relations  of  physics. 

8.  It  has  been  stated  above  that  a  second  error  also  is  believed  by 
the  dogmatist  to  underly  the  criticist's  assertion  that  the  science 
which  investigates  knowledge  as  such  is  fundamental,  to  wit,  the 
criticist  fails  to  distinguish  between  two  uses  of  the  word  '  knowl- 
edge ' :  first,  that  which  denotes  the  act  of  knowing,  the  natural 
event  called  knowing,  or  'knowing  in  the  making' ;  and  secondly, 
that  which  refers  to  the  truths  or  propositions  known,  the  systems 
of  propositions  called,  for  example,  the  sciences.  As  a  consequence 
of  this  neglect,  the  dogmatist  believes,  the  criticist  ascribes  to 
sciences,  for  instance  to  mathematics,  that  which  is  true  only 
of  the  student  of  mathematics,  as  such  a  student  learns,  thinks, 
or  makes  discoveries  in  the  course  of  his  mathematical  research. 

Hundreds  of  things  may  be  true  of  this  or  that  mathematician  at 
work  studying  his  science,  which  are  not  true  of  mathematics. 
He  may  be  dependent  upon  visual  pictures  in  his  geometrical 
research.  He  may  make  an  important  discovery  by  mere  acci- 
dent or  a  happy  and  brilliant  intuition.  He  may  be  more  suc- 
cessful studying  while  he  smokes  than  when  he  is  not  smoking. 
He  may  be  more  inventive  and  mentally  acute  mornings  and 

1  Of  course  any  such  discussion  can  be  a  dispute  about  mere  words,  but  we  deny 
that  this  is  true  of  the  foregoing.  Logic  is  an  ancient  science,  and  it  is  possible, 
without  any  idle  disputation,  to  ascertain  what  its  nature  is.  Now,  as  is  the  case  in 
the  human  history  of  almost  every  science,  the  student  has  not  always  seen  clearly 
what  the  nature  of  his  science  is.  Thus  we  are  far  better  able  to-day  to  define  logic 
than  was  Aristotle  in  his  time,  precisely  as  we  are  better  able  to  define  geometry 
than  was  Euclid.  If  to  this  the  reply  is  made,  "  Any  attempt  to  define  a  science  is 
either  a  purely  verbal  matter  or  an  idle  matter,"  I  can  but  reply,  it  seems  to  me  just 
the  opposite.  To  be  able  to  define  a  science  rigorously  and  correctly  is  to  pass  a 
most  important  and  significant  milestone  in  the  course  of  human  history. 


EPISTEMOLOGY  NOT  FUNDAMENTAL  57 

nights  than  he  is  afternoons.  In  short,  health,  fatigue,  fresh  air, 
digestion,  season  of  the  year,  time  of  day,  inborn  mental  and  physi- 
cal traits,  previous  training,  praise  and  fame,  example  and  com- 
petition, ideals  and  curiosity,  and  what  not  else  may  all  be  fac- 
tors in  determining  what  he  learns,  what  he  discovers,  and  the 
rigor  of  his  demonstration.  But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with 
mathematics?  Is  it  part  of  mathematics?  Would  any  sane 
man  put  into  a  rigorous  mathematical  demonstration  memoranda 
regarding  his  health,  the  time  of  day,  and  the  state  of  the  weather, 
his  ambitions,  and  his  mental  imagery  ?  Yet  why  not  ?  Clearly 
because  such  information  is  not  mathematics.  True,  he  might 
state  in  a  book  on  geometry  the  date  when  a  proposition  was  dis- 
covered and  first  proved,  and  who  the  discoverer  was:  but  if 
he  did  so,  it  would  not  add  one  whit  to  the  mathematical  infor- 
mation he  was  giving  the  reader;  and  if  he  failed  to  do  so,  it  would 
not  lessen  either  the  accuracy  of  the  geometrical  doctrine  or  the 
rigor  of  its  demonstration. 

9.  In  other  words,  propositions,  and  they  alone  constitute  a 
science,  are  not  events  in  time.  They  do  not  come  into  being 
or  get  created  by  the  student  who  first  learns  that  they  are  true. 
They  are  discovered  and  not  made,  as  truly  as  was  the  American 
continent  discovered  and  not  made  by  the  explorers  of  the  fif- 
teenth and  sixteenth  centuries.  Thus  mathematics  as  a  system 
of  true  propositions  has  been  in  part  discovered  by  man;  but 
this  discovery  or  that  failure  to  discover  did  not  add  or  sub- 
tract anything  to  or  from  mathematics,  did  not  make  any  of 
its  propositions  either  true  or  false,  did  not  alter  it  in  any  way. 
Two  plus  two  equaled  four,  and  the  sum  of  the  angles  of  a  plane 
triangle  in  Euclidian  space  equaled  two  right  angles  when  the 
earth  was  a  molten  mass,  as  truly  as  they  do  to-day.  Mathe- 
matics and  any  other  science  is  what  it  is  for  only  two  reasons  : 
because  certain  propositions  are  true  and  others  false,  and  because 
one  proposition  implies  certain  propositions  and  does  not  imply 
certain  others.  Thus  if  a  physicist  is  asked  why  it  is  true  that  the 
cables  of  a  suspension  bridge  in  hanging  from  tower  to  tower 


58  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

formed  a  catenary  before  the  rest  of  the  bridge  was  constructed, 
and  now  when  the  bridge  is  completed  form  a  parabola,  he  will 
not  talk  in  reply  about  the  knowing  process,  but  he  will  show 
that  these  propositions  are  true  because  other  propositions  are 
true  (that  is,  certain  propositions  in  elementary  mathematics  and 
mechanics)  and  because  these  propositions  imply  the  state  of  affairs 
mentioned  (that  is,  the  propositions  asserted)  in  the  question.1 
At  this  the  nominalistic  reader  may  rise  in  scorn  and  protest: 
"You  are  confusing  mere  abstractions  with  real  things.  You 
are  taking  the  words  of  men  and  treating  them  as  timeless  super- 
natural entities,  dwelling  in  a  Platonic  world  of  pure  thought. 
Apart  from  the  thoughts  of  men,  mathematics,  or  any  other  sci- 
ence, has  no  more  existence  than  has  the  man  in  the  moon."  To 
this  I  reply :  I  have  no  desire  either  to  refute  or  to  support  nomi- 
nalism in  what  I  have  said ;  but  I  do  wish  the  nominalist  to  under- 
stand me,  and  I  fear  that  up  to  this  point  he  may  not  have  done 
so.  He  certainly  has  not  if  the  words  which  I  have  just  put  in 
his  mouth  are  truly  there.  Of  course  mathematics  as  a  timeless 
system  of  true  propositions  does  not  exist  in  the  sense  that  the 
Rocky  Mountains  or  the  Atlantic  Ocean  exists ;  but  on  the  other 
hand,  when  man  discovers  a  mathematical  truth,  he  truly  discovers 
it  as  he  truly  discovers  and  does  not  create  the  distant  islands 
of  the  South  Seas.  Hence,  whatever  may  be  the  full  sense  of  the 
statement,  mathematics  has  its  being  apart  from  man's  thought,  it 
will  include  or  imply  two  propositions  at  least:  first,  mathematics 

1  All  this  does  not  mean  that  the  word  '  science '  has  not  the  same  ambiguity  as 
has  the  word  '  knowledge.'  Quite  the  contrary,  the  word  '  science '  means  two 
distinct  things :  on  the  one  hand,  a  part  of  human  achievement,  a  thing  that  has 
had  a  growth  and  a  history,  a  thing  that  can  prosper  or  perish,  a  thing  that  de- 
pends upon  man  for  its  existence ;  on  the  other  hand,  a  collection  of  propositions 
that  do  not  exist  in  time,  that  are  discovered  by  man  but  in  no  way  are  made  or 
altered  by  this  discovery,  that  would  subsist  and  would  be  true  or  false  even  had 
man  never  existed.  Such  is  usage,  and  it  would  be  in  vain  as  well  as  unnecessary 
to  attempt  to  avoid  this  custom.  Hence  throughout  this  essay  I  shall  use  the 
word  'science'  in  both  senses,  speaking  for  example  of  the  history  and  growth  of 
science  as  well  as  of  the  propositions  of  science.  Which  is  the  intended  meaning 
in  each  case  the  context  should  always  make  quite  clear. 


EPISTEMOLOGY  NOT  FUNDAMENTAL  59 

does  not  depend  for  its  truth  upon  our  minds  any  more  or  in  any 
other  sense  than  does  the  existence  of  the  North  Pole ;  and  secondly, 
the  historical  origin  of  man's  knowledge  of  mathematics  is  in  no 
sense  mathematical,  nor  does  mathematics  presuppose  logically 
any  propositions  regarding  man,  his  knowing  process,  or  in  gen- 
eral any  proposition  constituting  a  theory  of  knowledge.  If  mathe- 
matics is  true,  it  is  so  for  the  same  reason  that  any  other  pi$posi- 
tion  in  all  reality  is  true,  which  seems  to  mean  the  truism,  it  is 
true  because  reality  is  just  what  reality  is.1  Again,  if  mathematics 
is  true  to-day,  it  always  was  true  and  always  will  be  true,  because 
we  mean  by  truth  something  in  no  way  a  function  of  the  time  at 
which  it  is  asserted  by  the  knower.  Mathematics,  then,  or  any 
other  science,  does  indeed  not  exist ;  but  it  is,  has  being,  subsists, 
and  as  such  it  is  a  timeless  system  of  propositions.2 

1  That  is,  the  question  why  a  proposition  is  true  can  mean  one  of  two  things, 
the  first  of  which  admits  of  an  answer  and  the  second  does  not.  A  proposition  is 
true  because  some  other  proposition  is  true  and  implies  it.  But  why  is  that  other 
proposition  true,  why  ultimately  is  anything  true  that  is  true  ?  Well,  the  question 
is  as  absurd  as  the  question,  Why  is  red  red?  The  question  asks  us  to  go  beyond 
the  ultimate,  and  its  absurdity  shows  us  that  truth  is  ultimate  and  as  such  is  only 
to  be  discovered,  and  is  not  to  be  ascertained  by  any  device  which  would  make  it 
explicable. 

2 1  hope  that  the  pragmatist  reader  also  will  not  misunderstand  the  foregoing 
statements.  Of  course,  knowing  is  a  natural  event  and  as  such  its  nature  is  to 
be  ascertained  by  a  frank,  unprejudiced  study  of  fact  and  not  by  any  dialectic. 
Or,  as  I  should  prefer  to  put  it,  logic  throws  no  light  upon  the  nature  of  the  knowing 
process  except  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  true  that  logic  throws  light  also  upon  the 
nature  of  the  rocks,  the  ocean  currents,  or  anything  else  that  exists  or  takes  place. 
Therefore,  in  as  far  as  the  pragmatist  is  against  that  type  of  epistemology  which  is 
chiefly  dialectic,  I  am  heartily  in  sympathy  with  him.  But  as  he  is  liable  to  suspect 
anything  which  sounds  like  dialectic,  he  will  no  doubt  think  the  foregoing  statements 
at  best  disguised  error.  If  so,  I  believe  either  he  fails  to  understand  me  or  he  mis- 
takes quite  the  nature  of  logic.  If  he  rightly  permits  the  mathematician  to  go  ahead 
with  his  mathematics  undisturbed,  why  should  he  interfere  with  the  formal  logician  ? 
The  whole  preceding  problem  is  strictly  and  solely  one  of  logical  analysis.  Formal 
logic  defines  the  relation  logical  priority,  and  holding  to  that  definition  I  have 
urged  that  the  theory  of  knowledge  is  not  logically  prior  to  logic  or  to  physics. 
Questions  of  fact  are  in  no  way  involved.  If  they  were,  of  course  the  foregoing  argu- 
ment begs  the  question.  If  the  problem  is  solely  one  of  logical  analysis,  as  I  claim 
it  to  be,  then  either  there  is  no  such  rightful  procedure  as  logical  analysis,  or  I  must 


60  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

10.  If  then  logic  is  not  a  science  of  the  knowing  process,  and  if 
most  of  the  sciences  do  not  presuppose  any  information  regard- 
ing the  knowing  process,  what  is  the  place  of  the  science  of  knowl- 
edge relatively  to  that  of  other  sciences?  This  question  will 
be  answered  more  fully  later  on;  but  for  the  present  it  suffices 
to  say,  the  knowing  process,  the  act  of  discovery,  man's  reasoning 
and  the  conditions  of  this  reasoning,  are  natural  events.  They 
take  place  at  definable  moments;  and  in  all  essential  respects 
they  are  like  other  natural  events  which  lend  themselves  to  our 
study  and  research.  As  a  consequence,  the  science  of  knowledge 
instead  of  being  sui  generis,  and  instead  of  occupying  an  excep- 
tional position  relatively  to  the  other  sciences,  is  simply  one  of 
the  special  sciences.  Its  implications  may  or  may  not  be  wide 
reaching,  a  matter  to  be  ascertained  only  by  a  study  of  the  facts 
and  certainly  not  by  any  a  priori  consideration  of  the  field  of  the 
science. 


Ill 


THE  LOGICAL  POSITION,  RELATIVELY  TO  THE  OTHER  SCIENCES 
OF  THE  THEORY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  AND,  IN  PARTICULAR,  OF 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

1.  AGAINST  all  of  the  foregoing  statements  some  criti  cists  will 
immediately  urge :  "Logic,  as  any  other  science,  has  to  assume  the 
possibility  of  knowing  and,  in  particular,  the  possibility  of  know- 
ing matters  logical.  Hence,  there  must  be  a  science  prior  to  all 
others,  even  to  logic,  which  shows  the  possibility  of  knowing. 
Or  if  logic  is  indeed  fundamental  and  therefore  has  to  be  ex- 
cepted  from  this  axiomatic  statement,  then  it  alone  is  prior  to 
the  science  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge,  but  all  other  sciences 
are  subsequent  and  dependent." 

be  permitted  to  pursue  my  enterprise  undisturbed  as  long  as  I  am  not  surreptitiously 
introducing  information  unattainable  by  logical  analysis,  and  as  long  as  I  keep  to 
information  so  commonplace  and  so  much  a  matter  of  course  that  to  prove  it  true 
by  a  fresh  investigation  of  fact  would  be  needless. 


THE  LOGICAL  POSITION  OF  EPISTEMOLOGY     61 

Let  us  examine  the  extreme  position  first,  "even  logic  presup- 
poses the  conclusions  of  this  ultimate  science,  the  science  whose 
subject  matter  is  the  possibility  of  knowledge."  How  is  the 
criticist  to  avoid  here  a  vicious  circle?  It  will  be  his  business 
to  show  that  knowledge  is  possible  and  to  show  the  conditions  that 
make  knowledge  possible,  yet  in  doing  this  he  too  will  have  to  use 
premises  and  among  these  will  be  one  asserting  that  his  investiga- 
tion as  an  instance  of  knowing  is  possible.  Now  if  it  is  permissible 
for  the  criticist  to  make  this  assumption  in  the  pursuit  of  Ms  re- 
search, why  may  it  not  be  permissible  for  the  logician  to  do  the 
same  in  his  study,  and  similarly  any  other  scientist?  In  other 
words,  if  it  is  the  business  of  Kant  in  his  '  Critique  of  Pure  Reason ' 
to  show  how  mathematics  is  possible,  whose  business  is  it  to  show 
how  the  '  Critique  of  Pure  Reason '  itself  is  possible  ?  Moreover, 
if  there  were  such  an  ultimate  science,  it  would  presuppose  parts 
of  logic  in  the  course  of  its  demonstrations,  and  therefore  the 
criticist  would  be  in  the  uncomfortable  position  of  assuming  the 
possibility  of  logic  in  order  to  prove  the  possibility  of  logic. 

2.  The  extreme  position  then  involves  a  vicious  circle  and  is 
untenable;  but  is  not  the  other  position  also  untenable?  That 
is,  if  the  logician  and  the  criticist  may  rightly  assume  the  possi- 
bility of  discovering  and  demonstrating  the  propositions  of  their 
sciences,  for  what  possible  reason  do  they  forbid  the  mathema- 
tician, the  physicist,  the  biologist,  the  historian,  or  any  one  else 
from  doing  likewise  in  other  branches  of  scientific  or  popular 
research?  Do  they  do  so  by  showing  that  it  is  less  difficult  to 
read  and  understand  Kant's  '  Critique '  than  to  learn  how  to  light 
a  fire  or  to  shoot  an  arrow?  If  so,  our  savage  ancestors  must 
have  had  remarkable  intellects.  Do  they  do  so  by  showing  that  the 
mathematician  and  the  astronomer  had  to  wait  until  the  eighteenth 
century  of  our  era  to  get  their  doctrines  well  established  ?  If  so, 
history  proves  the  contrary.  Do  they  do  so  by  showing  that 
the  premises  upon  which  logic  and  criticism  rest  are  self-evident, 
and  that  their  doctrine  is  infallible?  Even  Kant  admits  the  in- 
fallibility, nay,  explicitly  bases  his  views  upon  the  assumed  in- 


62  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

fallibility,  of  mathematics  and  mechanics.  Do  they  do  so  by 
showing  that  the  science  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge  presup- 
poses only  the  results  of  logical  research  and  not  the  results  of  any 
other  science  ?  That  is,  do  they  show  that  they  are  not  guilty  of 
a  similar  vicious  circle  here  in  respect  to  some  of  the  other  sciences, 
as  they  were  shown  to  be  in  respect  to  logic;  for  perhaps  they 
presuppose  the  possibility  of  certain  sciences  in  order  to  prove 
the  possibility  of  these  same  sciences  ?  Indeed,  I  shall  give  rea- 
sons later  for  thinking  that  they  do  precisely  this.  Finally,  if 
none  of  these  implied  objections  be  true;  do  they  show  that  we  are 
so  much  better  able  to  observe  directly  and  accurately  the  facts 
involved  in  knowing  that  there  is  no  need  to  have  a  science  of 
the  possibility  of  knowing  how  we  know  and  how  we  can  know, 
whereas  it  is  necessary  to  have  such  a  science  to  show  that  we  can 
know  the  trees,  the  birds,  the  rocks,  the  earth,  and  the  stars? 
Some  criticists  no  doubt  would  try  to  show  this;  but  in  the  se- 
quel I  shall  endeavor  to  prove  that  their  theory  also  assumes  the 
possibility  of  observing  precisely  these  out-of-door  things  and  so 
make  evident  that  they  also  assume  the  possibility  of  such  knowl- 
edge  in  order  to  demonstrate  its  possibility. 

3.  To  put  it  affirmatively,  I  am  convinced  that  either  the 
possibility  of  knowledge  is  not  the  premise  of  any  science,  or  it  is 
the  premise  of  all  sciences  and  the  conclusion  of  none;  and  of 
these  alternatives  I  believe  that  the  former  alone  is  true.  I  ar- 
gue thus:  The  word  'possibility'  contains  the  ambiguity  pre- 
viously referred  to ;  that  is,  either  it  means  the  possibility  of  man's 
discovering  and  demonstrating  science,  or  it  means  logical  possi- 
bility. The  former,  which  seems  to  be  the  meaning  in  the  mind 
of  the  criticist,  lies,  as  we  have  seen,  entirely  without  the  various 
sciences,  and  has  nothing  to  do  either  with  their  content  or  with 
their  validity.  Mathematics  certainly  has  no  premise,  "mathe- 
matics is  possible  knowledge."  On  the  other  hand,  if  logical  pos- 
sibility be  meant,  it  can  refer  only  to  the  question,  whether  or  not 
the  premises  from  which  the  results  of  a  given  science  follow  are 
true.  In  other  words,  what  a  science  assumes  is  not  the  possibility 


THE  LOGICAL  POSITION  OF  EPISTEMOLOGY     63 

of  its  being  known,  but  the  truth  of  its  premises;  and,  this  is  even 
more  to  the  point,  what  you  and  I  assume  in  believing  this  or  that 
doctrine  to  be  true,  for  example,  in  believing  that  light  is  due  to  an 
undulating  motion  in  the  ether,  is  not  the  possibility  of  knowing 
such  matters  but  again  the  truth  of  the  premises  upon  which  our 
particular  demonstration  rests.  Hence  the  statement,  "it  is  im- 
possible for  us  to  know  such  propositions,"  could  mean  only,  "we 
cannot  know  them  to  be  true  " ;  but  if  we  cannot  know  them  to 
be  true,  this  must  be  because  we  cannot  know  that  the  premises 
are  true,  from  which  they  follow.  In  short,  in  believing  the 
sciences  we  assume  their  premises  to  be  true,  and  this  is  our  only 
assumption. 

4.  But,  you  retort,  "Ought  we  not  to  ascertain  whether  or  not 
these  premises  are  true?"  Yes,  by  all  means;  but  to  assume 
the  possibility  or  even  to  know  the  possibility  of  our  doing  so, 
will  not  help  us  actually  to  get  the  information :  for  either  we 
can  get  it  or  we  cannot ;  and  if  we  can,  we  do,  and  if  we  cannot, 
we  do  not.  "Yes,  but  there  is  a  further  question  which  remains 
entirely  unanswered,"  you  may  reply.  "In  accepting  these 
premises  are  we  not  able  to  state  which  ones  are  merely  assumed 
to  be  true  and  which  ones  are  true  ?  If  so,  then  we  must  know 
when  we  are  merely  assuming  and  when  we  really  know.  But 
how  can  we  tell  the  difference  unless  there  be  some  ultimate 
science  which  gives  us  infallible  criteria  by  which  ignorance  can 
be  distinguished  from  knowledge  and  by  which  the  field  of  possi- 
ble knowledge  is  marked  off  forever  from  that  of  impossible  knowl- 
edge? Of  course  you  can  take  the  position  that  we  always  as- 
sume and  never  genuinely  know ; l  but,  if  you  do,  why  do  you 
believe  some  things  and  not  others  ?  Why  do  you  not  believe  every- 
thing? Is  your  choice  purely  whim?  If  it  is  not,  there  must 
be  some  infallible  criterion  to  guide  you  at  least  in  making  as- 
sumptions; even  the  pragmatist  seems  to  have  that  much." 

Well,  some  dogmatists  admit  the  force  of  this  argument,  but  they 

1  I  confess  that  some  dogmatists  seem  to  take  this  position ;  and  if  they  do,  I 
believe  that  in  their  case  the  criticist  has  the  better  of  the  argument. 


64  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

draw  a  quite  different  conclusion.  Let  us  grant  that  a  thorough 
logical  analysis  of  any  man's  knowledge  shows  the  premises  of 
that  knowledge  to  be  divided  into  two  classes;  first,  premises 
that  are  merely  assumed  and  therefore  are  tentative,  and,  secondly, 
premises  that  are  not  tentative,  but  are  out-and-out  fact.  Other- 
wise expressed,  let  us  admit  that  some  premises  are  assumed  to 
be  true,  and  that  some  are  known  (or  perceived)  to  be  true.1  What 
follows  ?  Does  it  follow  that  we  cannot  know  a  proposition  to  be 
true  without  assuming  the  possibility  of  this  knowledge,  or,  in  other 
words,  without  assuming  that  we  know  that  we  know  it  to  be  true  ? 
If  so,  we  have  an  infinite  regress  on  our  hands ;  and  it  would  be 
far  better  frankly  to  admit  that  we  do  not  know  anything,  but  as- 
sume everything  we  assert.2  But  this  does  not  follow.  If  we 
do  indeed  perceive,  or  know  some  propositions  to  be  true,  then 
this  knowledge  is  ultimate,  and  no  further  assumptions,  premises, 
or  explanations  lie  logically  behind  it.  If  you  still  persist  in  ask- 
ing how  it  is  possible  to  perceive  a  truth,  I  have  to  reply,  your 
question  is  as  absurd  as  the  questions :  Why  is  hard,  hard  ?  Why 
is  blue,  blue?  I  perceive  it,  and  that  ends  the  matter.  More- 
over, this  must  be  the  criticist's  own  real  position ;  for  either  his 
epistemology,  as  an  ultimate  science,  is  mere  assumption,  or  it 
is  based  at  least  in  part  upon  perceived  truth.  If  the  latter,  he 
has  either  to  admit  that  this  calls  for  further  investigation,  or  to 
affirm  with  me  that  it  is  ultimate  and  no  investigation  can  go 
logically  behind  it. 

Even  many  realists  may  think  that  I  go  too  far  in  asserting  this 
extreme  dogmatism.  They  may  urge:  "  Unless  knowledge  is  pos- 
sible, you  cannot  know,  that  is,  knowing  presupposes  the  possibil- 
ity of  knowing.  Again,  if  as  a  realist  you  maintain  that  we 
perceive  the  physical  world  truly  as  an  extra-mental  world,  you 

1  Cf.  Stout,  G.  F.    Immediacy,  Mediacy,  and  Coherence.     Mind,  1908,  N.  S., 
17,  20. 

2  As  far  as  I  can  see,  this  is  the  position  of  those  who  hold  to  the  organic  or  monis- 
tic theory  of  truth.     Cf.  Russell,  B.    Philosophical  Essays,  "  The  Monistic  Theory 
of  Truth  "  ;  also  Stout,  loc.  cti. 


THE  LOGICAL  POSITION  OF  EPISTEMOLOGY      65 

thereby  presuppose  some  theory  of  perception,  which,  if  true, 
would  make  such  an  act  possible.  In  short,  unless  realism  is  true, 
we  do  not  perceive  an  extra-mental  world  ;  or,  our  perceiving  an 
extra-mental  world  presupposes  realism."  Such  opinions  seem  to 
me  to  indicate  fallacious  reasoning  and  to  be  an  invalid  objection 
to  my  'extreme'  dogmatism.  Knowing  as  an  event  has  indeed  its 
necessary  conditions.  Therefore  when  I  assert  that  knowing  is  tak- 
ing place  I  do  presuppose  all  the  necessary  conditions  of  knowing,  pre- 
cisely as  when  I  assert  that  water  is  boiling  I  assert  implicitly  all  the 
necessary  conditions  of  water  boiling.  Of  course,  but  all  of  this  is 
beside  the  issue.  The  issue  is  this :  when  I  assert  that  water  is  boil- 
ing, am  I  ipso  facto  asserting  that  I  am  knowing  that  water  is  boiling  ? 
No,  for  "water  is  boiling"  and  "I  perceive  that  water  is  boiling" 
are  two  different  propositions  and  have  different  presuppositions. 
The  former  proposition  has  no  presuppositions,  as  far  as  physical 
science  informs  me,  regarding  the  knowing  process  or  its  possibility  ; 
whereas  the  latter  proposition  has  such  presuppositions.  Now  I 
urge  that  if  this  last  statement  were  not  true,  the  science  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  knowing  would  be  an  unavoidable  vicious  circle.  As 
any  other  science,  it  too  has  its  presuppositions,  and  has,  I  sup- 
pose, crucial  tests  for  its  various  theories.  Hence  the  epistemologist 
is  no  better  off  than  is  the  chemist,  for  as  the  chemist  he  must  assume 
postulates  and  observe  facts  in  order  to  discover  and  to  demonstrate 
his  theory  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge.  If  in  so  doing  he  as- 
sumes the  possibility  of  knowing  (as  he  claims  the  chemist  does), 
then  he  assumes  the  possibility  of  knowing  in  order  to  prove  that 
knowing  is  possible.  In  short,  we  have  logically  to  start  some- 
where, and  I  maintain  that  it  is  a  matter  verifiable  by  ordinary 
empirical  study  that  the  scientific  investigator  does  not  start  with 
propositions  regarding  the  knowing  process.  I  do  indeed  believe 
that  we  start  with  postulates  and  presuppositions,  but,  I  add,  we 
start  also  with  perceived  truths.  Now,  a  perceived  truth  in  no  way 
presupposes  a  theory  of  any  sort  or  kind.  It  is  logically  ultimate, 
it  is  a  crucial  test  of  our  theories  and  of  their  presuppositions.  Even 
a  theory  of  the  possibility  of  knowing  presupposes  its  crucial  tests ; 


66  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

whereas  if  the  crucial  tests  themselves  presuppose  the  theory,  they 
are  not  crucial  tests.  To  be  sure,  there  is  one  philosopher  for 
whom  this  argument  is  utterly  inadequate,  namely,  the  believer  in 
the  monistic  or  organic  theory  of  truth.  He  really  denies  that 
there  is  any  such  relation  as  logical  priority  ;  and  I  have  to  confess 
that  I  know  no  way  of  refuting  the  theory  of  a  man  who  rejects 
formal  logic  and  holds  consistently  to  this  rejection.  Fortunately, 
however,  the  monist  is  never  a  consistent  monist,  for  he  argues ;  and 
it  is,  I  believe,  possible  to  reduce  his  monism  to  the  absurdity 
pointed  out  by  Mr.  Russell  in  the  essay  to  which  I  have  referred. 
Here  the  realistic  reader  may  again  protest:  "The  dogmatist, 
no  matter  where  he  starts  logically,  will  sooner  or  later  come  to 
the  problems  of  the  theory  of  knowledge;  and  he  must  solve  these 
epistemological  problems  in  such  a  manner  that  his  solution  will 
be  consistent  with  the  solution  of  his  logically  prior  problems. 
Therefore  in  his  solution  of  logically  prior  problems  he  has  already 
indicated  implicitly  a  part  at  least  of  his  future  epistemological 
theory.  If  so,  he  really  starts  with  an  epistemological  theory." 
Yes,  but  only  in  the  sense  in  which  I  can  maintain  that  the  chem- 
ist starts  with  a  biological  theory.  His  chemistry  has  no  doubt 
shut  out  certain  conceivable  biological  hypotheses  which  presup- 
pose that  present-day  chemistry  is  false.  So,  no  doubt,  logic,  math- 
ematics, physics,  and  biology  shut  out  certain  epistemological 
theories.1  Yet  notice  this  is  so,  not  because  they  presuppose  any 
theory  of  knowing,  but  because  our  theory  of  knowing  presupposes 
them.  It  is  utterly  idle  to  work  out  a  theory  of  knowing  which 
presupposes  that  the  exact  sciences  are  false,  unless  we  are  pre- 
pared to  go  back  to  intellectual  savagedom.  In  short,  we  have  to 
start  logically  somewhere,  but  this  'somewhere'  is  not  with  a 
theory  of  knowing ;  and  in  so  starting,  we  do  indeed  shut  out  all 
theories  of  knowing  which  contradict  whatever  constitutes  the 
ultimate  crucial  tests  of  our  theories.  My  own  conviction  is  per- 
ception is  that  ultimate  crucial  test,  and  as  such  it  does  not  presup- 

1  Personally  I  believe  that  they  shut  out  idealism. 


THE  LOGICAL  POSITION  OF  EPISTEMOLOGY     67 

pose  its  own  possibility.     It  simply  is;  and  the  man  who  questions 
it  assumes  it  in  order  to  do  the  questioning. 

5.  If  all  of  this  be  so,  what  follows  ?    In  case  our  beliefs  are  en- 
tirely built  upon  assumptions,  then  our  whole  question  becomes : 
Are  the  assumptions  of  epistemology  more  nearly  fundamental 
than  those  of  other  sciences;  in  other  words,  what  is  the  logical 
position  of  epistemology  among  the  sciences?    Whereas,  in  case 
there  are  perceived  truths,  then  either  epistemology  has  to  show 
that  it  has  a  monopoly  of  these  perceived  truths  and  that  it  is  in 
its  assumptions  logically  independent  of  the  sciences,  or  it  has  to 
admit  that  other  sciences  have  no  need  of  its  good  offices.     But 
this  again  is  merely  to  say,  epistemology  has  to  show  that  it  is 
logically  prior  to  the  other  sciences.     That  is,  our  whole  question 
regarding  the  science  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge  reduces  to 
the  question,  What  is  the  logical  position  of  epistemology  among 
the  sciences,  and,  in  particular,  what  is  the  logical  position  of  that 
branch  of  it  which  deals  with  the  conditions  of  knowledge  ?    As 
I  have  already  shown  that  epistemology  presupposes  logic,  my 
question  may  be  restated  as  the  two  following  problems :   What  is 
the  logical  position  of  the  theory  of  knowledge  relatively  to  the  sci- 
ences other  than  logic  ?  and,  in  particular,  What  is  the  logical  po- 
sition  of   that   branch   of   epistemology  which  investigates   the 
possibility  of  knowledge  ? 

6.  The  answer  to  the  first  question  asserts :    not  only  is  the 
theory  of  knowledge  subsequent  to  logic,  but  it  is  subsequent 
also  to  some  of  the  special  sciences,  such  as  physics  and  biology. 
The  knowing  process  as  a  natural  event  is  conditioned  by  many 
factors,  the  mind's  physical  and  social  environment  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  needs,  the  structure,  and  the  health  of  the  bodily 
organism  on  the  other  hand.     No  explanation  of  knowledge  has 
ever  been  given  that  ignored  totally  what  we  know  regarding 
these  factors. 

In  opposition  to  this,  no  one  will  claim  that  an  epistemology 
can  be  deduced  from  the  principles  and  formulae  of  formal  logic 
alone.  Surely  more  data  must  be  allowed  the  investigator.  But 


68  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

what  data?  Would  it  be  sufficient  that  the  epistemologist  be 
furnished  in  addition  with  the  sciences  themselves  as  systems 
of  propositions  in  which  various  doctrines  are  demonstrated? 
If  so,  his  task  would  be  to  show  precisely  what  are  the  logical  foun- 
dations of  the  sciences.  That  is  to  say,  he  would  state  rigorously 
the  ultimate  premises  presupposed  in  them,  he  would  define  the 
fundamental  notions  as  far  as  they  are  definable  and  point  out  the 
ones  that  he  finds  himself  unable  to  define.  It  is  true  that  many 
an  epistemologist,  e.g.  Kant,  has  attempted  to  solve  some  of  these 
problems,  which  fall  strictly  within  the  field  above  defined ;  but 
is  this  epistemology  ?  It  is  not,  for  as  we  have  seen  it  would  ex- 
clude a  study  of  the  knowing  process,  of  the  factors  entering  into 
knowledge,  and  of  the  growth  of  knowledge  and  of  many  other 
problems  usually  accredited  to  the  theory  of  knowledge.1 

Well  then,  would  he  have  sufficient  data  if  he  got  all  his  other 
information  by  mere  introspection,  if  he  became  an  expert  intro- 
spective psychologist  of  the  knowing  process  ?  As  such  an  in- 
vestigator he  would  watch  our  knowing  in  the  making;  and  he 
would  describe  for  us  the  facts  precisely  as  he  directly  observes 
them,  for  he  would  not  derive  them  from  physiology,  physics, 
or  any  other  science.  In  this  case  he  could  not  offer  us  any  ex- 
planation of  these  facts,  or  give  us  any  hint  as  to  what  part  they 
play  in  man's  life,  as  to  what  factors  influence  the  knowing 
process  from  without,  as  to  what  goal  human  cognition  is  prob- 
ably heading  toward,  as  to  what  limitations  are  set  to  the  field 

1  Of  course  if  the  reader  chooses  to  limit  thus  his  own  use  of  the  word,  he  may 
have  a  right  to  do  so ;  but  as  the  names  metaphysics  and  epistemology  are  em- 
ployed in  this  essay,  the  problem  of  the  purely  logical  foundations  of  the  sciences 
falls  entirely  within  metaphysics  and  entirely  without  epistemology.  There  is 
indeed  danger  of  idle  dispute  regarding  the  proper  use  of  these  words ;  for  recent 
books  entitled  theory  of  knowledge  and  the  great  classic  writings  of  the  past  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  often  contain  matter  that  is  both  metaphysical  and  episte- 
mological  as  I  define  these  terms.  This  difficulty,  however,  can  and  ought  to  be 
avoided,  for  the  nomenclature  lies  quite  beyond  the  purpose  of  my  essay ;  whereas 
the  specific  problems  and  the  logical  relations  of  their  solutions  are  all-important. 
Therefore  the  conclusion  follows,  as  the  word  epistemology  is  here  defined,  that  the 
investigator  in  that  field  must  have  other  or  additional  data. 


THE  LOGICAL  POSITION  OF  EPISTEMOLOGY      69 

of  possible  knowledge.  Indeed,  some  philosophers  would  urge 
that  he  could  not  tell  us  about  anybody's  knowing  process  ex- 
cept his  own;  and  other  philosophers  would  maintain  that  he 
could  do  even  this  only  through  outside  information  regarding 
his  own  life  and  its  environment.  Evidently,  the  science  in  which 
we  are  interested  should  not  be  thus  hedged  in;  for,  as  we  see, 
the  chief  problems  regarding  the  knowing  process,  its  nature, 
its  conditions,  its  growth,  its  goal,  and  its  limitations  would 
have  to  be  excluded. 

If,  then,  we  are  to  require  all  this  knowledge  from  the  epistemolo- 
gist,  what  sources  of  information  must  be  open  to  him  ?  Clearly, 
almost  everything  that  modern  knowledge  can  put  at  his  dis- 
posal. He  must  know  all  that  biology  and,  in  particular,  physi- 
ology can  tell  him  of  the  relation  between  man's  body,  its  func- 
tions, and  its  origin  on  the  one  hand,  and  man's  knowledge  on  the 
other  hand.  He  must  know  of  the  functional  relationship  be- 
tween man's  environment,  both  physical  and  social,  and  man's 
knowledge,  between  our  instinctive  impulses,  needs,  and  purposes 
and  our  knowledge.  He  must  know  the  history  of  our  knowl- 
edge and  of  our  sciences  from  prehistoric  days  to  our  own  tune, 
in  order  to  learn  the  course  of  scientific  evolution  and  the  fac- 
tors which  determine  this  course.  Likewise,  he  must  know  the 
development  of  knowledge  in  the  individual  and  the  factors  which 
determine  it.  In  short,  besides  contributions  from  biology 
and  physiology,  he  will  need  all  the  help  psychology,  social  psychol- 
ogy, physics,  political  and  social  history,  and  the  history  of  sci- 
ence can  give  him. 

Thus,  one  must  answer  our  question  regarding  the  logical  posi- 
tion of  epistemology  among  the  sciences  somewhat  as  follows : 
Epistemology  is  not  logically  fundamental ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
presupposes  logically  the  results  of  many  of  the  special  sciences. 
If  these  results  are  false,  so  also,  as  far  as  we  can  tell,  is  epistemol- 
ogy; and  without  these  results  granted  as  data  the  epistemolo- 
gist  would  be  unable  to  solve  most,  if  not  all,  the  problems  belong- 
ing properly  within  the  field  of  his  science. 


70  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

7.  Much  the  same  is  true  of  our  second  problem,  the  problem 
we  face  when  within  epistemology  we  try  to  ascertain  what  knowl- 
edge is  possible  and  how  it  is  possible.  Man  has  never  succeeded 
in  getting  trustworthy  information  on  this  subject  except  em- 
pirically ;  for  in  case  after  case  man  has  been  able  to  discover  what 
scholars  in  an  earlier  age  pronounced  unknowable,  or  would 
have  pronounced  unknowable  if  the  question  had  so  much  as  en- 
tered their  minds.  This  has  been  true  of  what  man  has  learned, 
precisely  as  a  similar  truth  holds  regarding  what  he  has  proved 
himself  able  to  do  in  spite  of  an  earlier  belief  that  the  deed  was 
impossible.  We  have  been  able  to  see  the  far-distant  and  the  ex- 
ceeding small  where  centuries  ago  such  vision  would  have  seemed 
impossible.  We  have  been  able  to  study  the  chemistry  and  the 
temperature  of  the  stars,  we  can  weigh  the  planets,  we  can  tell 
with  complete  accuracy  the  area  of  curved  figures  whose  sides 
stretch  out  to  infinity.  In  short,  precisely  as  our  wireless  tele- 
graph and  telephone,  our  X-ray  photographs,  and  our  trolley 
cars  would  seem  miracles  to  Galileo,  could  we  suddenly  usher 
him  from  the  seventeenth  century  into  the  twentieth;  so,  too, 
what  has  proved  possible  for  man  to  learn  since  his  day  would  seem 
to  him  miraculous. 

It  will  be  objected  that  all  such  trite  instances  and  the  whole  ar- 
gument which  appeals  to  them  are  entirely  beside  the  issue.  "  What 
within  certain  large  areas  will  prove  possible  or  impossible  can  of 
course  be  learned  only  inductively;  and  Galileo  might  well  have 
been  clever  enough  to  refuse  to  answer  questions  regarding  such 
matters.  But  Galileo  was  able,  and  as  able  as  we,  to  study  di- 
rectly the  nature  and  conditions  of  knowledge  and  learn  the  ul- 
timate boundary  within  which  knowledge  must  keep.  Thus, 
Galileo  could  not  predict  the  future  of  physical  and  astronomi- 
cal science  nor  in  any  way  give  the  details  of  what  was  to  prove 
possible  within  this  general  field  which  as  a  division  of  science 
he  knew  to  be  possible;  but  he  could  have  shown  that  there  are 
other  problems  essentially  unlike  any  man  has  ever  solved,  and  that 
man  lacks  totally  the  kind  of  mind  which  could  solve  these  prob- 


THE  LOGICAL  POSITION  OF  EPISTEMOLOGY      71 

lems.  Take  as  an  illustration  a  doctrine  of  Kant.  Man  has  a 
sensuous  intuition  only.  He  lacks  an  intellectual  intuition ;  and 
since  there  are  problems  which  could  be  solved  only  by  such  a 
higher  faculty,  man  must  be  content  to  let  these  problems  remain 
forever  unsolved.  Thus  man  cannot  experience  God,  just  be- 
cause God  is  not  sensuous.  Again,  man  cannot  trace  back  the  world 
to  an  origin  or  know  it  in  its  totality,  because  from  the  nature  of 
the  mind  such  is  not  a  possible  experience.  The  two  types  of 
problem  are  fundamentally  distinct,  and  the  methods  of  their 
solution  also  are  fundamentally  different."  Thus  the  criticist 
agrees  with  the  dogmatist  that  in  the  one  case  only  an  inductive 
study  of  the  history  and  status  of  the  problems  before  the  sci- 
entist could  enable  us  to  predict  with  any  probability  what  will 
or  will  not  prove  possible  knowledge :  whereas,  in  the  other  case, 
he  maintains  that  a  direct  study  of  the  nature  of  knowledge  can 
show  that  some  problems  are  and  some  are  not  solvable.  We  must 
accordingly  turn  our  attention  to  the  latter  case  to  ascertain  pre- 
cisely what  constitutes  this  branch  of  the  theory  of  knowledge. 

What  is  this  study  of  knowledge  which  can  reveal  the  field  of 
possible  knowledge  and  its  bounds?  If  the  question  means  by 
a  study  of  knowledge  a  study  of  the  knowing  process  and  of  the 
factors  conditioning  it,  then  evidently  we  are  referred  again  to  one 
of  the  special  sciences,  to  the  empirical  study  of  the  origin  and 
growth  and  function  of  knowledge  in  the  individual  and  in  the 
race.  This  study  is  not  a  fundamental  or  peculiar  science.  Let  me 
take  Kant's  doctrine,  not  as  proof  of  this,  but  as  an  illustration  of 
what  I  mean.  In  the  first  place,  his  '  Critique '  assumes  that  we 
possess  certain  types  of  information,  and  it  endeavors  to  show  that 
the  mind  must  possess  certain  faculties  in  order  to  make  this  knowl- 
edge possible.  Kant's  actual  argument,  to  be  sure,  confuses  this 
with  some  other  problems ;  but  in  the  main  his  reasoning  shows 
clearly  that  he  is  presupposing  a  definite  psychological  theory 
and  that  his  problem  introduces  only  what  lends  itself  to  induc- 
tive and  empirical  research.  In  short,  it  is  psychological.  In  the 
second  place,  Kant's  'Critique,'  holding  to  a  certain  theory 


72  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

of  existence  and  to  a  certain  theory  of  the  knowing  process,  de- 
duces from  them  the  impossibility  of  our  knowing  a  supersen- 
suous  world  or  the  sensuous  world  in  its  totality.  In  short, 
his  results  presuppose  two  things  which  make  his  theory  far 
from  logically  ultimate,  a  theory  of  existence  and  a  psychology 
of  cognition.  It  is  true  that  there  is  far  more  than  this  involved 
in  Kant's  '  Critique ' ;  but  the  moment  we  consider  these  further 
problems,  we  pass  over  to  a  radically  different  sort  of  study  of 
knowledge  and  its  possibility,  for  this  study  is  not  a  study  of  the 
knowing  process  proper,  but  of  that  which  is  known,  the  evidence 
upon  which  it  is  based,  and  the  postulates  or  axioms  which  it 
assumes.  Thus  to  return  to  our  question,  if  we  examine  actual 
specimens  of  the  science  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge,  the 
science  that  the  criticist  assures  us  is  ultimate  and  sui  generis, 
we  find  only  two  things :  first,  psychology  and  cognate  branches  of 
science,  and  secondly,  a  study  of  the  logical  foundations  of  our 
knowledge.  Either  we  find  that  the  criticist  is  analyzing  the 
sciences  logically  to  ascertain  what  data,  or  facts,  what  postulates 
or  principles,  and  what  logical  formulae  make  them  possible; 
or  we  are  introduced  anew  to  the  historical  and  empirical  study 
of  the  origin  and  growth  of  knowledge  in  the  individual  and  in  the 
race.  If  there  is  some  further  problem  or  some  further  method, 
examination  of  the  criticist's  work  fails  to  reveal  it ;  and  the  dog- 
matist, in  despair  lest  he  has  overlooked  it,  can  only  beg  that  it 
be  produced. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  criticist  replies  to  all  such  statements: 
"You  do  not  understand  criticism.  It  differs  from  other  episte- 
mologies  precisely  in  its  keeping  psychology  and  epistemology 
distinct.  The  mind,  and  the  knowing  which  it  studies,  are  not  the 
personal  but  the  over-personal.  Of  course  psychology  is  one  of 
the  special  sciences.  This  we  too,  not  only  admit,  but  teach,  for 
psychology  itself  presupposes  epistemology."  Yes  indeed,  it 
is  perfectly  clear  what  your  intentions  are,  and  that  if  epistemol- 
ogy would  only  be  what  you  want  it  to  be,  it  would  indeed  be 
fundamental  to  psychology  and  in  no  way  itself  psychological. 


THE  LOGICAL  POSITION  OF  EPISTEMOLOGY      73 

But  the  question  is  not  one  of  definition  or  of  good  intention. 
The  question  is,  What  is  the  epistemology  you  offer  mankind? 
I  know  what  you  want  to  do,  but  do  you  do  it  ?  Produce  the  episte- 
mology that  does  not  presuppose  psychology.  Produce  the  episte- 
mology that  is  fundamental.  My  point  is,  the  deed  has  never  been 
done  and  cannot  be  done;  and  therefore  that  there  is  but  one 
refutation  to  dogmatism,  to  wit,  the  production  of  an  epistemol- 
ogy that  is  at  once  truly  fundamental  and  not  a  vicious  circle.  Most 
dogmatists  of  to-day  were  brought  up  in  the  Kantian  philosophy. 
They  had  explained  to  them  the  nature  of  criticism,  its  funda- 
mental character,  and  its  difference  from  psychology.  What  is 
more,  they  believed  what  they  were  taught.  But  later  they  began 
to  examine  more  critically  the  epistemology  actually  offered  them 
and  found  it  not  fundamental  but  saturated  with  scientific  prej- 
udices of  one  sort  or  another,  found  it  distinctly  a  doctrine  of  the 
day  and  generation  of  its  author,  found  it,  in  short,  a  vicious  circle. 
To  such  a  student  of  philosophy  it  is  not  enough  to  reiterate, 
epistemology  is  such  and  such.  There  is  but  one  thing  to  do, 
that  is,  to  produce  the  epistemology  which  is  in  accord  with  the 
criticist's  definition. 

8.  If  the  dogmatist  is  right  in  his  conviction  that  the  summary 
aforegiven  states  fully  the  criticist's  problem  of  the  possibility 
of  knowledge,  then  the  following  seems  to  him  a  sufficient  refu- 
tation. As  to  the  data,  or  facts  open  to  possible  observation, 
history  shows  that  human  prediction  is  quite  fallible,  especially 
where  new  methods  and  new  instruments  have  come  to  man's  aid. 
As  to  our  sensory  and  intellectual  limitations,  only  the  elaborate 
empirical  and  inductive  studies  of  the  psychologist  can  give  us 
precise  information;  and  psychology  is  one  of  the  special  sci- 
ences posterior  to  several  others.  As  to  the  postulates  and 
principles  of  science,  history  shows  that  these  have  often  changed, 
and  experience  has  proved  that  not  only  in  chemistry  and  phys- 
ics, but  even  in  mathematics,  the  method  of  trial  and  error  has  under- 
lain man's  discovery  and  selection  of  these  fundamental  proposi- 
tions. Moreover,  prediction  here  too  has  been  decidedly  fallible, 


74 

and  no  evidence  whatsoever  is  forthcoming  that  any  a  priori 
method  of  discovery  will  ascertain  what  principles  will  be  suffi- 
cient, not  to  mention  which  ones  will  prove  necessary  or  even  that 
any  will  prove  necessary.  The  history  of  philosophical  mathe- 
matics from  Kant's  time  until  to-day  ought  to  banish  from  any 
philosopher's  mind  the  belief  that  the  theory  of  knowledge  can 
reveal  with  certainty  the  necessary  principles  for  the  demonstra- 
tions of  the  future  scientist.  Even  the  logician  should  learn  from 
past  experience  that  many  an  accepted  logical  principle  may  in  the 
future  prove  to  require  radical  revision,  or  at  least  may  be  capable 
of  further  analysis  or  better  formulation.  Thus  the  science  of 
the  possibility  of  knowledge  is  not  sui  generis,  but  is  empirical  and 
inductive,  as  are  most  other  sciences.  The  information  that  it 
offers  carries  with  it  no  categorical  imperative  to  the  special 
scientist  to  be  guided  thereby ;  for  he  is  precisely  the  one  that  in 
the  past  has  successfully  rebelled  against  the  older  or  traditional 
principles,  and  that  has  been  the  discoverer  of  the  new  ones  which 
take  their  place.  Thus  our  general  conclusion,  I  believe,  must 
stand :  The  theory  of  knowledge  is  not  logically  fundamental  to  the 
sciences,  and  it  cannot  by  any  direct  or  a  priori  study  of  the  know- 
ing process  ascertain  the  possible  field  or  the  limits  of  the  sciences. 


IV 


EPISTEMOLOGY    DOES    NOT    GIVE,    BUT  PRESUPPOSES,    A  THEORY  OF 

REALITY 

1.  WE  have  next  to  inquire  whether  or  not  the  theory  of 
knowledge  can  give  us  general  existential  truths  revealing  the 
outlines  of  reality  or  constituting  a  theory  of  reality.  By  main- 
taining that  the  fundamental  postulates,  or  principles  of  science,  are 
laws  of  thought,  and  that  these  laws  of  thought  can  be  discovered 
by  the  student  of  knowledge,  transcendentalism  claims  to  be  able 
to  show  a  priori  the  most  general  features  of  the  existent  world. 
Thus  according  to  the  familiar  doctrine  of  Kant,  the  world  we 


A  THEORY  OF  REALITY   PRESUPPOSED          75 

experience  is  determined  in  part  by  the  experiencing  mind,  for  the 
mind's  nature  gives  to  whatever  we  experience  its  form.  In  this 
way  he  explains  that  the  world  which  we  experience  is  a  world  in 
space  and  time  and  a  world  ruled  by  causal  law.  Or,  as  we  might 
put  it  to-day:  were  our  minds  of  a  different  nature,  the  world 
which  we  should  then  perceive  and  know  might  be  quite  other  than 
our  present  world;  for  example,  it  might  be  a  spaceless  world, 
or  if  a  spatial  world,  it  might  have  four  dimensions ;  or  again, 
if  it  were  spatial  and  had  three  dimensions,  it  might  none  the  less 
be  a  world  in  which  parallel  lines  meet  or  in  which  the  sum  of  the 
angles  of  a  triangle  are  more  or  less  than  two  right  angles.  In 
short,  we  owe  it  to  the  nature  of  our  mind  that  in  this  world  the 
sum  of  the  angles  of  a  plane  triangle  equals  two  right  angles. 
Hence,  if  our  modern  mathematicians  can  deduce  for  us  various 
geometries  other  than  the  familiar  one  of  Euclid,  the  transcen- 
dentalist  can  show  us  from  the  nature  of  our  experience  which  one 
of  them  all  is  the  one  that  truly  holds  in  the  world  about  us.  The 
others  may  be  perfectly  logical,  that  is,  true  if  their  premises  are 
true;  but  the  epistemologist  shows  that  their  premises  are  not 
true.  Moreover,  to  do  this  he  does  not  have  to  go  to  nature,  nor 
does  he  have  to  experiment,  measure,  and  observe  until  he  finds 
some  facts  inconsistent  with  all  but  one  of  the  geometries ;  rather, 
he  can  employ  the  far  easier  method  already  described.1 

Besides  the  Kantian  and  more  closely  related  doctrines  I  wish 
to  include  under  the  term  transcendentalism  the  neo-Hegelian 
theory  of  knowledge.  Thus  we  are  told  by  some  Hegelians : 
Reality  is  experience ;  and  reality  is  at  least  to  some  degree  man's 
experience,  for  though  our  experience  falls  short  of  completeness  and 
perfection,  and  though  on  this  account  we  must  look  beyond  man's 
mind  for  the  perfect  experience  of  reality,  still  man's  experience 
reveals  the  essential  nature  of  that  perfect  experience.  Our  ex- 
perience develops,  and  the  course  of  its  development  reveals  the 
goal  whither  it  tends.  That  goal  is  the  experience  of  the  abso- 

1  Cf.  as  a  recent  example  of  Kantian  transcendentalism,  Bauch,  Bruno,  Studien 
zur  Philosophic  der  exakten  Wissenschaften,  108-141. 


76  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

lute  or  universal  mind,  and  this  experience  is  absolute  reality. 
Briefly  expressed,  it  is  the  business  of  the  epistemologist  to  ascer- 
tain from  our  knowledge  the  general  nature  of  a  perfect  knowledge, 
and  from  that  to  infer  the  general  nature  of  absolute  reality. 

Thus  from  the  nature  of  our  knowledge  it  can  be  shown  that  no 
self-contradictory  experience  is  true,  and  from  this  it  can  be  in- 
ferred infallibly  that  reality  is  self-consistent.  This  example  is 
perhaps  not  so  startling  to  the  uninitiated  as  some  others,  because 
it  happens  that  no  sane  man  believes  that  two  contradictory 
propositions  can  both  be  true.  Yet  for  our  purpose  its  seeming 
self-evidence  makes  it  an  excellent  illustration,  for  if  the  dog- 
matist is  in  the  right,  even  this  argument  of  transcendentalism 
is  fallacious.  Again,  that  reality  is  an  organic  unity,  and  that  this 
can  be  deduced  from  the  nature  of  knowledge  is  another  favorite 
doctrine  of  some  Hegelians.  They  argue :  As  our  knowledge  grows 
at  one  part  all  other  parts  undergo  change ;  for  even  the  proposi- 
tion, two  plus  two  equals  four,  is  not  the  same  truth  to  you  and  to 
me  now  that  it  was  in  our  childhood.  As  our  insight  into  other 
things  mathematical  has  increased,  so  too  has  our  insight  into  this 
information  belonging  to  childhood;  and  so  the  adult's  state- 
ment, two  plus  two  equals  four,  is,  strictly  speaking,  not  the  same 
as  the  child's,  for  it  has  become  a  profounder  knowledge.  Hence  if 
knowledge  grows  as  a  totality  and  never  by  mere  addition  of  new 
information  to  the  old,  if  its  various  parts  are  so  organically  con- 
nected that  a  change  anywhere  means  a  change  everywhere,  and 
if  an  increasing  and  better  knowledge  always  reveals  these  aspects 
even  more  prominently;  then  a  completely  true  or  perfect  knowl- 
edge must  be  a  perfect  organic  unity.  Hence  each  so-called  part 
will  be  what  it  is  because  of  the  whole,  and  the  whole  will  be  what 
it  is  because  of  each  part.  Now  if  such  a  knowledge  is  the  truth, 
if,  in  other  words,  to  be  true  it  is  compelled  to  be  such  a  knowledge; 
then  the  world  also  of  which  it  is  a  perfect  knowledge  must  be  an 
organic  unity.  The  universe  must  be  what  it  is  because  of  its 
members,  and  the  members  must  be  what  they  are  because  of  the 
whole  to  which  they  belong ;  it  cannot  be  a  mere  aggregate  of  in- 


A  THEORY  OF  REALITY  PRESUPPOSED          77 

dependent  parts.  Hence,  again,  if  you  ask  the  criticist  how  he 
knows  this,  he  does  not  reply  that  he  has  got  his  information  in 
experimental  laboratories,  astronomical  observatories,  or  through 
research  in  the  field ;  rather,  he  asserts  it  follows  from  the  nature 
of  knowledge. 

2.  How  persuasive  is  the  argument,  yet  is  it  not  utterly  falla- 
cious ?  And  if  it  is  fallacious,  is  it  not  perhaps  the  most  gigantic 
case  of  self-deception  of  which  the  human  intellect  has  been  guilty  ? 
What  does  the  dogmatist  teach  in  opposition?  One  thing  just 
as  dogmatist  he  does  not  do,  and  that  is  to  deny  any  of  the  existen- 
tial propositions  of  transcendentalism.  It  may  be  that  the  world 
is  a  causal  system,  or  it  may  be  that  the  world  is  an  organic  unity. 
What  he  does  object  to  is  the  means  by  which  the  criticist  claims  to 
get  this  information.  He  denies  that  the  study  of  the  nature  of 
knowledge  can  reveal  any  such  theory  of  reality.  Hence  he 
believes  that  if  the  criticist's  theory  of  reality  be  true,  it  has  been 
logically  smuggled  into  the  theory  of  knowledge  and  then  exhibited 
afterward  as  a  home  product. 

In  particular  the  dogmatist's  objections  will  differ  somewhat  for 
different  types  of  transcendentalism.  Thus  the  transcendentalism 
of  Kant,  and  of  those  who  follow  him  or  Hume  or  Berkeley  closely, 
often  asserts  less  general  existential  propositions  than  does  the 
present-day  Hegelian  transcendentalism.  Now  these  less  general 
existential  assertions  are  easy  either  to  disprove  or  to  trace  back 
to  their  logical  origin  in  the  special  sciences;  whereas  the  criti- 
cism of  such  a  proposition  as  the  one  asserting  the  world  to  be  an 
organic  unity  is  more  difficult  both  to  formulate  and  to  follow. 

Let  us  consider  first  the  objections  to  the  former  type  of  tran- 
scendentalism. The  attempts  to  discover  a  priori  the  structure 
of  reality  within  the  field  of  the  natural  sciences  has  been,  as  al- 
most all  philosophers  admit,  most  unsuccessful.  Who  to-day 
would  dare  infer  from  the  nature  of  knowledge  the  number  of  the 
planets  in  our  solar  system  ?  Yet  is  it  any  the  less  foolhardy  for 
the  philosopher,  basing  his  opinions  solely  upon  his  theory  of  knowl- 
edge, to  deduce  the  nature  of  space  and  tune,  to  decide  whether 


78  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

mechanics  or  energetics  is  in  the  right,  to  show  that  we  ought 
to  banish  such  notions  as  matter,  empty  space,  and  infinity  from 
our  existential  sciences,  to  deduce  the  persistence  of  force,  or  to 
claim  that  events  in  nature  are  not  related  by  causal  law  ?  More- 
over, where  the  attempt  has  been  made  and  where  the  inference 
seems  to  be  quite  correct,  there  remains  still  the  question :  Was 
not  the  method  actually  used  quite  other  than  a  priori  f  Did  the 
argument  indeed  keep  quite  within  the  theory  of  knowledge  ?  The 
dogmatist  believes  it  did  not.  Rather  he  believes  the  principles 
were  discovered  by  means  of  a  logical  analysis  of  the  scientific 
views  of  the  day  and  were  afterwards  fallaciously  shown  to  be 
laws  of  thought  or  necessary  forms  of  cognition.  If  this  is  the 
course  of  procedure,  transcendentalism  follows  logically  the  re- 
sults of  the  special  sciences,  and  it  certainly  is  not  in  a  position  to 
dictate  to  science  her  principles.  Indeed,  the  position  of  transcen- 
dentalism relatively  to  the  sciences  reminds  one  of  the  stern  father 
who  ordered  his  small  boy  to  go  to  bed,  and  upon  the  latter's  reply, 
"I  won't !"  said,  "Then  don't!  I'll  be  obeyed."  A  growing  science 
is  a  hard  youngster  to  discipline,  and  history  shows  that  the 
philosophers  who  have  been  foolhardy  enough  to  lay  down  rules 
for  its  behavior  for  all  time  to  come  have  had  later  to  beat  a 
retreat. 

3.  To  be  sure,  merely  to  assert  all  this  is  not  to  prove  it;  yet 
to  prove  it  fully  would  require  me  to  examine  with  great  care  many 
different  examples  of  critical  epistemology.  This  cannot  be  done 
here;  rather  it  must  suffice  to  take  the  greatest  of  the  criticists 
as  our  example  and  ask  my  questions  regarding  his  work.  Kant's 
'  Critique  of  Pure  Reason '  claims  to  show  that  certain  great  exis- 
tential principles  are  deducible  from  the  nature  of  knowledge, 
for  they^  are  i  forms  either  of  our  intuition  or  of  our  understanding. 
In  other  words,  a  study  of  the  transcendental  activity  of  the  mind 
will  reveal  the  necessary  principles  of  all  existential  science. 

Whenc&did  Kant  get,  and  by  'get'  I  mean  infer,  these  great  laws 
of  the  pure  reason  ?  Did  he,  after  genuinely  studying  the  nature 
of  knowledge,  derive  his  information  from  this  study;  did  he  not 


A  THEORY  OF  REALITY  PRESUPPOSED          79 

rather  get  his  great  principles  first  from  his  own  scientific  and  meta- 
physical research  and  from  the  science  and  metaphysics  of  his  day, 
and  then  did  he  not,  after  reading  them  into  the  nature  of  knowl- 
edge, read  them  out  again  ?  My  conviction,  and  the  conviction 
surely  of  many  students  of  Kant,  is  that  the  latter  was  altogether 
the  case;  for  is  it  possible  to  understand  thoroughly  the  conclu- 
sions of  Kant's  '  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  '  and  be  quite  ignorant  of 
his  scientific  and  metaphysical  environment  and  precritical  growth  ? 
Where  did  he  get  his  phenomenalism,  which  is  a  premise  and  not  a 
conclusion  of  his  argument?  Where  did  he  get  his  psychology, 
which  again  is  a  premise  and  not  a  conclusion  ?  Indeed,  is  not  his 
psychology  decidedly  faulty,  and  has  it  not  led  him  into  many 
epistemological  and  metaphysical  errors?  Where  did  he  get  his 
first  two  antinomies  which  played  such  an  important  part  in  the 
development  of  his  transcendentalism?  Did  they  come  from  a 
study  of  knowledge  or  from  a  study  of  science?  Moreover,  is 
there  not  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  Newtonian  conception  of 
nature  underlies  many  of  his  conclusions  and  often  leads  him  to 
think  of  the  world  of  things  in  themselves  as  a  follower  of  Locke 
and  Newton  would  have  done  ? l  Further,  were  his  conclu- 
sions regarding  the  fallacious  character  of  the  arguments  for  the 
existence  of  God  genuinely  the  outcome  of  his  study  of  the  nature  of 
knowledge?  Were  they  not  rather  the  result  of  a  profound  study 
of  the  arguments  themselves  ?  Again,  is  his  doctrine  of  space  and 
time  truly  the  outcome  of  a  direct  and  cautious  study  of  our 
spatial  and  temporal  intuitions  ?  Is  it  not  the  other  way  round  ? 
That  is,  is  not  his  doctrine  of  space  and  time  an  hypothesis  logi- 
cally "dependent  upon  his  metaphysical  conviction  that  mathe- 

1  All  the  statements  made  in  this  essay  regarding  Kant  are  meant  chiefly  as 
illustrations.  To  those  who  interpret  Kant  differently  they  may  seem  to  call  for  an 
extended  exposition  and  proof,  which  would  take  us  far  from  our  main  theme. 
In  justification  of  most  of  my  views  regarding  Kant's  Critique  I  shall  then  have 
to  refer  to  the  excellent  study  of  his  theory  of  knowledge  by  Prichard.  Kant's 
Theory  of  Knowledge.  Oxford.  1909.  Cf.  also  Erdrnann,  Benno.  La  critique 
Kantienne  de  la  connaissance  comme  synthese  du  rationalisme  et  de  rempirisme. 
Revue  de  Melaphysique  et  de  Morale.  1904. 


80  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

matics  can  furnish  us  infallible  information  regarding  the  nature 
of  real  space  and  real  time  ?  Finally,  how  about  his  doctrine  of 
causation?  Surely  the  two  following  premises  underlie  logically 
this  part  of  his  epistemology :  first,  the  facts  under  observation  in 
the  natural  sciences  do  not  reveal  a  causal  relation  or  necessary  se- 
quence ; l  and  secondly,  all  explanations  of  nature  presuppose 
logically  that  the  sequence  of  events  in  nature  is  a  necessary  order. 
In  other  words,  was  Kant  truly  in  doubt  about  the  existential 
validity  of  physics  until  by  investigating  knowledge  he  proved 
to  himself  that  experience  would  be  impossible  unless  the  under- 
standing by  a  transcendental  activity  makes  nature  a  causal  sys- 
tem; or  was  not  this  rather  the  logical  order  of  his  thought? 
Nature  is  a  causal  system,  physics  is  existentially  true  ;  what 
possible  theory  of  knowledge  then  will  account  for  the  fact 
that  although  nature  does  not  reveal  this  causal-nexus  to  our 
senses  still  we  know  that  it  is  there  ?  Kant  became  here  and  there 
an  empiricist ;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  he  grew  up  and  never 
ceased  wholly  to  be  an  old-fashioned  rationalist,  which  indicates 
that  he  remained  a  dogmatist  in  spite  of  his  efforts  to  be  a  genu- 
ine criticist.  In  short,  his  transcendentalism  as  a  whole  presup- 
poses his  precritical  psychology  and  metaphysics,  even  though  it 
be  true  that  here  and  there  hi  his  '  Critique '  are  to  be  found  bril- 
liant studies  of  the  knowing  process.  If  this  be  so,  the  Kantian 
transcendentalism  is  a  vicious  circle ; 2  and  that  it  is  so,  is  no  ar- 
gument against  the  greatness  of  Kant,  for  even  a  Kant  could  not 
do  the  impossible. 

4.  However,  the  transcendentalist  can  make  his  position  far 
more  secure  by  reducing  the  existential  principles  he  claims  to 
infer  from  epistemology  to  a  few  high  generalizations;  for  ex- 

1  As  philosophers  of  the  enlightenment  beginning  with  Locke  and  Leibniz  and 
ending  with  Hume  and  Kant  were  coming  to  see  more  and  more  clearly. 

*  How  apparent  and  utterly  naive  the  vicious  circle  is  in  the  phenomenalism  of 
Karl  Pearson  !  His  '  metaphysics  of  the  'telephone  exchange '  is  almost  explicitly 
the  presupposition  instead  of  the  conclusion  of  his  theory  of  knowledge.  In  short, 
by  assuming  a  goodly  supply  of  information  regarding  the  transcendent  world  he 
can  prove  to  us  that  we  can  know  nothing  at  all  about  that  world  ! 


A  THEORY  OF  REALITY  PRESUPPOSED          81 

ample,  if  he  teaches  only  these  two  propositions :  reality  is  a 
self-consistent  system,  that  is,  two  contradictory  existential  propo- 
sitions cannot  both  be  true;  and  reality  is  an  organic  unity. 
Whence  does  he  infer  these  propositions,  whose  truth  of  course  is 
here  in  no  way  under  debate  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  former  proposition  comes  from 
a  study  of  knowledge.  In  the  first  place,  the  epistemologist  be- 
lieved this  truth  from  his  childhood  and  it  seems  most  unlikely 
that  he  avoids  assuming  the  proposition  as  a  premise  in  his  episte- 
mological  research.  In  the  second  place,  what  is  our  proof  that 
two  contradictory  propositions  cannot  both  be  true?  There 
seem  to  be  only  four  tenable  answers :  it  is  a  self-evident  truth 
or  axiom,  it  is  a  generalization  from  particular  propositions,  it 
is  an  indemonstrable  or  ultimate  assumption  of  formal  logic, 
it  is  a  deduction  of  formal  logic  from  some  more  nearly  ultimate 
postulates.  In  any  .case,  it  is  a  proposition  presupposed  by  a 
large  part  of  logic  and  is  logically  prior  to  any  epistemological 
investigation.  It  is  not  a  law  of  thought.  If  in  our  thinking  we  use 
it,  we  use  it  as  a  premise,  and  we  use  it  because  it  is  true.  If  our 
thought  is  almost  always  compelled  to  use  it,  this  is  solely  because  it  is 
true,  and  because  so  few  inferences  fail  to  presuppose  it.  In  short, 
we  can  contradict  ourselves,  but  we  cannot  contradict  ourselves 
and  be  correct ;  and  this  is  so,  not  because  of  the  nature  of  thought, 
but  because  two  contradictory  propositions  are  not  both  true. 
Thus  we  may  conclude :  No  examination  of  thought  discovers  the 
law  of  contradiction  or  proves  it,  rather  such  an  investigation 
presupposes  it.  Hence  if  the  world  is  a  consistent  system,  our 
thought  has  no  more  to  do  with  making  it  so  than  has  the  nest- 
building  instinct  of  the  oriole. 

5.  Again,  is  the  world  an  organic  unity?  Let  me  grant  it  for 
the  sake  of  the  present  argument.  Does  this  proposition  follow 
from  the  nature  of  thought  ?  The  dogmatist  denies  that  it  does. 
Rather  the  doctrine  has  its  logical  source  in  a  principle  usually 
named  in  these  days,  the  internal  or  organic  theory  of  relations. 
But  whence  this  principle?  Sometimes  the  philosopher  who 


82  METAPHYSICS   AND   EPISTEMOLOGY 

holds  it  appears  to  infer  it  from  the  general  results  of  the  sciences. 
If  so,  it  is  a  generalization  such  as  a  law  of  physics.  Some- 
times the  philosopher  appears  to  infer  it  from  a  genuinely  em- 
pirical and  inductive  study  of  the  evolution  of  knowledge  hi  the 
race  and  in  the  individual.  If  so,  again  it  is  a  generalization  from 
science.1  Now  neither  of  these  methods  of  discovery  is  consistent 
with  transcendentalism,  nor  can  either  be  made  to  be  so.  There 
seem  to  be  but  two  ways  of  escape  from  this  conclusion.  The 
first  is,  to  retrace  our  steps  and  to  show  that  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge is  fundamental  and  that  reality  is  to  be  identified  with  the 
knowing  mind.  The  second  is  to  admit  frankly  that  this  principle 
is  an  ultimate  postulate  or  axiom  of  a  science  logically  prior  to 
epistemology;  namely,  a  proposition  of  metaphysics.  With  the 
latter  dogmatism  has  no  quarrel,  for  it  frankly  gives  up  transcen- 
dentalism. With  the  former,  however,  the  case  is  different.  Its 
first  proposition  is  false.  Its  second,  that  reality  is  to  be  identi- 
fied with  the  knowing  mind,  is  certainly  a  proposition  which  can- 
not be  proved  by  epistemology,  for  epistemology  presupposes  too 
many  existential  propositions  from  science  to  avoid  a  vicious  circle 
in  any  such  proof.  If,  then,  the  epistemologist  assumes  it,  he  does 
so  as  a  metaphysician  and  a  dogmatist.2 

6.  What  then  should  be  our  general  conclusion  regarding  tran- 
scendentalism ?  Transcendentalism  stands  or  falls  depending 
upon  the  truth  or  falsity  of  two  propositions:  first,  that  highly 
general  information  regarding  reality  can  be  inferred  from  the  na- 
ture of  knowledge;  secondly,  that  this  information  is  truly  fun- 
damental, that  it  does  not  itself  presuppose  an  array  of  exis- 
tential generalizations  and  postulates  borrowed  from  the  other 

1  Joachim  in  his  book,  The  Nature  of  Truth,  seems  to  me  to  do  both. 

1  Kant's  boasted  discovery,  which  he  compares  with  that  of  Copernicus,  comes 
here  in  question.  Is  it  an  assumption  or  a  valid  conclusion  of  his  Critique?  If 
the  former,  he  is  an  out-and-out  dogmatist.  If  the  latter,  he  has  wrought  a  logical 
miracle ;  for  his  epistemology  certainly  assumes  existential  propositions,  and  how 
could  it  do  so  without  assuming  an  existential  proposition  of  such  high  generality 
or  the  contradictory  of  this  proposition  ?  It  is  gratuitous  to  add  that  I  believe 
he  unconsciously  presupposed  the  last. 


THE  VERDICT  OF  HISTORY  83 

sciences.  The  evidence  shows  that  the  latter  at  least  of  these 
two  propositions  is  false.  In  short,  transcendentalism  is  a  vi- 
cious circle.  Its  supporter  pretends  to  derive  from  a  stated  source 
information  which  unconsciously  he  has  imported  from  elsewhere. 
It  is  like  a  'salted'  mine,  in  which  the  most  valued  ore  has  been 
put  not  by  nature  but  by  human  hands.  The  result  has  been  in- 
evitable. Every  intellectual  enterprise  except  transcendentalism 
seems  to  be  prospering.  We  are  learning  much  from  the  sciences 
to-day  regarding  subjects  that  were  once  the  center  of  the  philoso- 
pher's interest,  the  nature  of  the  heavenly  world,  the  nature  of 
matter,  the  nature  of  life,  and  the  nature  of  mind.  Even  the 
empirical  and  inductive  study  of  the  nature  and  growth  of  knowledge 
is  prospering,  for  we  surely  know  far  more  about  it  than  did  Kant. 
In  contrast,  what  careful  philosopher  would  offer  mankind  to- 
day the  amount  of  a  priori  information  Kant  claimed  to  derive 
by  means  of  his  transcendentalism?  Yes,  the  intervening  years 
have  certainly  proved  the  need  of  greater  caution,  and  this  too 
in  spite  of  an  increasing  insight  into  the  nature  of  knowledge ! 
Is  it  not,  then,  high  time  for  the  epistemologist  as  well  as  the  meta- 
physician to  declare  his  freedom  from  this  difficult  and  fruitless 
enterprise?  There  is  no  reason  why  a  direct  study  of  man's 
growing  knowledge  and  of  the  knowing  process,  if  it  be  conducted 
as  one  of  the  special  sciences,  should  not  yield  great  and  valuable 
and  demonstrable  results :  but  as  long  as  the  individual  episte- 
mologist feels  it  his  duty  to  tease  out  of  knowledge  by  a  dialectic 
a  world-hypothesis,  rather  than  to  devote  himself  to  a  modest,  open- 
minded,  and  inductive  study  of  cognitive  facts,  so  long  will  his 
work  continue  to  promote  intellectual  distrust  and  to  give  back 
disappointing  rewards. 

V 

AN   APPEAL  TO   THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST,   TO   THE   VERDICT  OP 

HISTORY 

1.   THERE  remains  one  further  line  of  argument  which  must 
not  be  totally  neglected,  the  appeal  to  the  pragmatic  test,  to  the 


84  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

verdict  of  history.  Has  epistemology  been  psychologically  and 
historically  the  chief  source  of  metaphysical  problems  and  of  their 
solution?  During  the  past  two  centuries,  in  which  the  influence 
of  epistemology  has  been  so  great  and  in  which  she  has  had  as 
her  leaders  the  ablest  philosophical  thinkers,  has  the  progress  of 
metaphysics  been  due  chiefly  to  epistemology  rather  than  to  the 
special  sciences  ?  Have  two  centuries  of  its  dominance  in  philo- 
sophical research  been  a  help  or  a  hindrance  ? 

It  would  be  most  unconvincing  to  offer  a  brief  answer  to  these 
questions,  if  I  pretended  for  a  moment  that  my  answer  were  based 
upon  an  analytic  and  well-established  solution  of  the  minuter 
problems  belonging  to  the  history  of  philosophy.  The  same  phi- 
losopher has  usually  been  both  metaphysician  and  epistemolo- 
gist;  and  the  actual  course  of  his  thought  from  day  to  day  has 
seldom  kept  the  two  sets  of  problems  distinct,  but  has  interwoven 
them  most  intricately.  Then,  too,  his  writings  may  completely 
conceal  the  actual  evolution  of  his  thought.  However,  history 
is  written  hi  large  letters  as  well  as  in  small;  and  it  is  therefore 
not  impossible  to  make  a  brief  and  convincing  statement  regard- 
ing the  influence  of  epistemology  upon  metaphysics  in  the  last 
two  hundred  years. 

What  has  done  most  to  change  our  modern  theory  of  reality? 
To  what  discoveries  or  doctrines  of  the  past  two  hundred  years 
is  our  present-day  metaphysics  especially  indebted,  to  episte- 
mology or  to  the  progress  of  the  natural  sciences?  Most  de- 
cidedly the  latter.  Even  epistemology  itself  is  similarly  indebted. 
How  great  a  change  in  our  conception  of  the  world  has  taken  place  ! 
Not  as  great  to  be  sure  as  the  change  from  the  thought  of  Dante 
to  that  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton;  still  the  two  changes  are  comparable. 
Mathematics,  physics,  and  biology  have  undergone  a  very  great 
and  wonderful  growth.  Chemistry  has  been  born  and  reached 
maturity.  So,  too,  has  the  historical  research  into  almost  every 
field  of  human  interest.  That  all  this  could  have  taken  place 
without  influencing  directly  and  profoundly  our  metaphysical 
views  is  unbelievable.  Let  us  see. 


THE  VERDICT  OF  HISTORY  85 

2.  First  there  has  been  the  great  growth  of  mathematical  knowl- 
edge. In  the  past  one  hundred  years  this  has  quite  changed  our 
view  of  the  nature  of  mathematics  itself ;  and,  what  is  especially 
important,  it  has  done  away  with  the  older  metaphysics  of  space. 
Instead  of  a  definite  and  infallible  conception  of  the  nature  of 
existent  space  and  time,  such  as  Kant  believed  we  possess,  we  know 
to-day  that  their  nature  cannot  be  inferred  solely  from  pure 
mathematics,  but  must  be  learned  in  part  at  least  empirically 
and  inductively  as  truly  as  must  the  nature  of  light  or  electricity. 
To  be  sure,  mathematics  also  will  continue  to  contribute  very  largely 
to  this  knowledge,  but  mathematics  contributes  also  very  largely 
to  our  knowledge  of  light  and  electricity.  In  short,  mathe- 
matics, and  mathematics  quite  divorced  from  any  epistemolog- 
ical  considerations,  has  completely  transformed  this  old  and  im- 
portant metaphysical  problem,  the  nature  of  space  and  time. 

A  similar  truth  holds  regarding  the  problem  of  Kant's  first  two 
antinomies.  The  problem  of  the  nature  of  the  mathematical  in- 
finite and  continuum  certainly  seems  to  have  reached  a  new  and 
higher  stage;  and  the  resulting  insight  into  these  two  notions, 
together  with  a  better  understanding  of  the  nature  of  mathe- 
matics itself,  have  removed  one  chief  source  of  error  in  the  older 
metaphysics.  For,  as  pure  mathematics  alone  cannot  solve  the 
problem  of  space  and  time,  so,  too,  it  cannot  solve  the  problem  of 
the  origin,  extent,  or  continuity  of  the  physical  world.  This  prob- 
lem, as  so  many  others,  must  remain  unsolved  until  facts  are 
discovered  which  can  be  shown  to  form  a  crucial  test  of  the  merits 
of  rival  hypotheses.  Whereas  if  mathematics  could  furnish  us 
knowledge  of  the  existent  world  without  the  aid  of  other  sciences, 
as  Kant  believed  it  could,  then  indeed  a  purely  dialectical  pro- 
cedure might  give  us  the  information  sought  in  this  way  by  the 
older  dogmatic  metaphysics.  Indeed,  one  of  the  greatest  philo- 
sophical discoveries  of  all  time  seems  to  have  been  made,  and 
made  in  the  nineteenth  century;  namely,  the  discovery  that  mathe- 
matics is  a  non-existential  science ;  and  this  discovery  we  owe  not 
to  the  epistemologist  but  to  the  philosophical  mathematician. 


86  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

3.  Not  only  are  we  indebted  to  mathematics,  but  also  to  physics 
and  chemistry  for  vast  changes  in  our  conception  of  the  physical 
world.     Of  all  metaphysical  problems  the  nature  of  matter  is  one 
of  the  oldest.     Now  in  the  last  few  years,  as  we  all  know,  we  seem 
to  be  learning  more  concerning  the  nature  of  matter  than  man 
succeeded  in  discovering  in  the  preceding  two  thousand  years. 
Even  such  a  good  old  conviction  as  that  mass  is  an  absolute  con- 
stant is  now  contradicted,  and  what  could  be  more  startling  than 
to  be  told  that  electricity  is  to  be  an  all  but  fundamental  concept 
in  the  new  philosophy  of  nature?    A  thousand  years  of  tran- 
scendentalism or  of  any  other  theory  as  to  what  matter  must  be 
in  order  to  be  a  possible  experience,  could  not  have  revealed  to  us 
such  truths.     Again,  the  rise  of  thermodynamics  and  its  doctrines 
regarding  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the  irreversibility  of 
nature's  processes  have   modified  greatly  our  conception  of  the 
physical  world  about  us.     It  may  be  that  their  ultimate  meta- 
physical significance  is  still  hidden  from  us,  but  in  any  case  their 
great  importance  to  metaphysics  seems  to  be  assured. 

4.  In  the  third  place,  nothing  during  the  past  one  hundred  years 
has  transformed  more  remarkably  our  theory  of  nature  and  of 
life  than  has  the  doctrine  of  animal  and  plant  evolution  and  in 
general  the  modern  historical  point  of  view.     To  whom  do  we 
owe  this  new  insight  ?    In  part,  indeed,  to  men  whose  names  are 
foremost  in  the  list  of  epistemologists,  to  Kant  and  Hegel,  and  to 
men  whom  they  have  strongly  influenced.     However,  it  is  very 
easy  to  exaggerate  this  truth  by  inferring  that  we  owe  this  part  of 
their  contribution  to  their  epistemology.     Moreover,  without  any 
desire  to  minimize  our  debt  to  them,  there  is  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  the  evolutionary  and  historical  point  of  view  would 
have  come  in  the  nineteenth  century  had  they  never  lived  and 
had  epistemology  been  completely  neglected  in  those  days;    for 
the  men  and  the  influences  that  led  us  to  the  new  way  of  think- 
ing belong  to  almost  every  department  of  European  science  and 
go  back  probably  to  the  days  of  Galileo.     There  is  the  growth  of 
astronomical  theory  from  the  Renascence  to  Kant  and   Laplace 


THE   VERDICT  OF  HISTORY  87 

with  their  evolutionary  hypotheses  of  the  origin  of  our  solar  system. 
There  is  the  new  and  profound  interest  in  history  and  historical 
research  due  on  the  one  hand  to  linguistic  and  literary  discoveries 
and  on  the  other  to  the  political,  social,  and  religious  ferment  of 
the  times  and,  we  should  add,  due  in  general  to  the  new  and  wide- 
spread romantic  interest  in  the  life  of  past  ages  and  of  other  lands. 
Finally  comes  the  rise  of  the  biological  evolutionary  hypothesis 
with  its  tremendous  influence  upon  the  thought  of  our  day.  Surely 
this  doctrine  also  was  chiefly  due,  not  to  the  philosophical  in- 
quiries of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  to  the  enormous  accumu- 
lation of  geological  and  biological  data  which  was  compelling  the 
scientist  to  seek  a  theory  to  explain  and  to  systematize  them. 
Indeed,  one  must  infer  in  all  departments  that  instead  of  our  new 
historical  point  of  view  being  indebted  to  epistemology,  episte- 
mology  has  itself  been  completely  transformed  by  this  influence 
from  without.  The  most  superficial  study  of  the  epistemology 
taught  to-day,  be  it  that  of  the  modern  Hegelian  or  that  of  James 
and  Dewey,  will  reveal  the  truth  of  this  conclusion;  for  knowl- 
edge is  now  regarded  by  all  as  an  essentially  evolutionary  process. 
5.  As  against  these  changes  in  our  conception  of  nature  and  of 
life  there  stand  five  important  metaphysical  doctrines  which 
appear  to  be  indebted  especially  to  the  study  of  knowledge: 
first,  the  doctrine  of  primary  and  secondasy  qualities;  secondly 
and  thirdly,  the  eighteenth  century's  criticism  of  the  older  doc- 
trine of  causation  and  of  substance;  fourthly,  the  idealistic,  or 
spiritualistic,  theory  of  reality;  and  fifthly,  in  more  recent  days, 
the  issue  regarding  the  organic,  or  internal,  theory  of  relations 
leading  to  the  opposed  theories,  monism  and  pluralism.  Some 
of  these  doctrines  and  their  logical  relation  to  epistemology  have 
been  already  considered;  but  we  are  now  concerned  solely  with 
influences,  psychological  and  historical.  The  dogmatist  has  to 
admit  that  the  influence  of  epistemology  here  has  been  very  great. 
However,  he  makes  this  admission  with  a  satanic  delight,  for  he 
believes  that  the  influence  has  been  all  but  disastrous.  The  in- 
tellectual world  has  been  led  astray  for  over  a  century  by  a  com- 


88  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

• 
plete  confusion  of  two  fundamentally  different  problems  and  by 

the  resulting  mad  hope  that  under  the  leadership  of  psychology 
metaphysics  was  to  find  its  way  at  last  into  the  promised  land. 
Even  our  greatest  philosophical  thinkers  for  two  centuries  have 
been  under  the  spell.  None  the  less  much  can  be  said  to  show  that 
even  within  these  five  problems  other  influences  than  epistemology 
have  been  at  work. 

In  the  theories  of  the  primary  and  secondary  qualities  there  is 
clear  evidence  that  the  physical  doctrines  of  the  day  had  their 
strong  influence  upon  all  who  held  the  theories.  Moreover,  there  is 
ample  evidence  to  show  that  physics  really  went  on  its  own  way 
minding  its  own  business  and  neglecting  what  the  epistemologists 
had  to  say  on  this  subject.  Indeed,  what  physicist  to-day  need  or 
would  bother  his  head  with  epistemological  doctrines  respecting 
what  are  and  what  are  not  primary  qualities  !  This  he  learns  by 
questioning  nature  and  by  ascertaining  what  theories  of  matter 
will  account  for  the  facts  he  observes.  Indeed,  the  metaphysician 
who  to-day  goes  for  information  on  this  subject  either  to  the  psy- 
chologist or  to  the  epistemologist  is  liable  to  find  that  not  one 
in  ten  can  tell  him  what  physics  has  to  say  regarding  the  primary 
qualities  of  matter,  let  alone,  give  him  a  theory  at  all  adequate 
in  the  light  of  our  present  knowledge  and  therefore  worth 
listening  to.  Rather  what  he  will  get  as  an  answer  is  a  vestige 
pointing  back  to  the  physics  of  an  earlier  century.  Perhaps  no- 
where has  a  combination  of  antiquated  physics  and  epistemo- 
logical metaphysics  given  rise  to  more  worthless  discussion.  The 
truth  of  the  case  is,  we  do  not  know  what  are  the  primary  quali- 
ties of  matter.  Energetics  gives  us  a  very  different  answer  from 
that  given  by  the  mechanist.  Then,  too,  we  are  in  the  midst  of  a 
period  when  a  flood  of  new  light  regarding  the  ultimate  nature  of 
matter  is  coming  into  physics.1  Indeed,  the  whole  subject  needs 
to  be  studied  anew  from  top  to  bottom  by  the  metaphysician  un- 

1  Cf .  on  one  physicist's  view  as  to  what  is  the  basis  for  dividing  qualities  into 
primary  and  secondary,  Duhem,  P.,  La  tMorie  physique.  Paris,  1906.  Pt.  2, 
Chap.  2. 


THE  VERDICT  OF  HISTORY  89 

der  the  instruction  of  the  physicist.  But  all  of  this  is  beside  our 
question  except  in  so  far  as  it  shows  that  an  older  physics  has  been 
strongly  influencing  the  views  of  many  an  epistemologist  from 
Locke's  day  to  our  own. 

6.  As  regards  the  various  doctrines  of  causation  the  influences 
at  work  have  probably  been  much  more  complicated  than  the  text- 
books on  the  history  of  philosophy  indicate.  It  is  true  that  as 
we  read  Berkeley,  Hume,  Kant,  and  Mill,  we  are  liable  to  feel 
that  epistemological  considerations  alone  are  at  work  behind 
their  criticism  of  the  older  doctrines  of  causation.  The  same  feel- 
ing, too,  may  come  in  reading  Mach  and  Pearson.  Still  it  is  far 
from  certain  that  this  feeling  is  justified,  for  they  were  dealing 
with  a  problem  that,  though  usually  regarded  as  epistemological, 
may  in  truth  turn  out  not  to  be  such.  To  be  more  explicit  and 
to  illustrate :  If  I  am  looking  at  a  landscape  gorgeous  with  the  light 
of  the  setting  sun  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  or  not  certain  colors 
are  there,  is  my  problem  epistemological  ?  No,  it  is  not,  though  it 
be  true  that  the  step  from  my  problem  to  those  of  epistemology 
might  be  a  very  short  one  for  many  thinkers.  Now  the  problem 
of  Berkeley  and  Hume  and  many  other  classical  writers  since  their 
day  was  in  part  one  that  is  strictly  analogous  to  the  foregoing. 
They  were  not  studying  the  knowing  process  so  much  as  the 
actual  empirical  evidence  of  a  necessary  sequence  of  events.  In- 
spection, Hume  really  tells  us,  does  not  reveal  any  such  connec- 
tion. It  reveals  a  succession,  but  not  a  causal  relation.  So  the 
nominalist  Pearson  of  our  own  day  inspects  nature  and  does  not 
see  there  any  causal  law.  He  does  see  the  flow  of  events,  but  he 
claims  that  is  all  nature  reveals.  Hence,  he  concludes,  to  assert 
the  existence  of  law  in  nature  is  to  read  into  nature  a  quite  foreign 
set  of  relations.  This  leaves  him,  and  Hume  before  him,  with  the 
problem,  what,  then,  is  so-called  natural  law  and  why  do  we  tend 
to  talk  as  though  it  were  a  genuine  element  in  nature  ?  In  short, 
quite  apart  from  any  question  as  to  what  is  the  correct  solution 
of  their  problem,  it  does  seem  as  though  something  in  addition 
to  merely  epistemological  influences  were  at  work  and  that  this 


90  METAPHYSICS  AND  EPISTEMOLOGY 

something  else  can  be  described  as  a  reaction  against  older  meta- 
physical theories,  together  with  a  greater  open-mindedness  in  their 
direct  observation  of  the  facts  of  nature.  If  this  is  true,  then 
we  have  to  conclude  that  a  clearer  awareness  of  the  absence  of  cer- 
tain facts,  a  keener  insight  into  the  logical  topheaviness  of  the 
theories  of  the  day,  as  well  as  a  greater  attention  to  the  nature 
of  knowledge,  were  all  at  work  in  bringing  about  the  reaction 
against  the  seventeenth-century  doctrine  of  causation. 

7.  In  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  substance,  a  much  stronger  proof 
can  be  offered  that  direct  evidence  in  the  form  of  fact,  together  with 
the  progress  of  theory  in  science,  played  an  important  part  in  the 
change  from  seventeenth-century  thought,  for  the  old  notion  was 
rejected  not  only  by  philosophers,  but  also  by  scientists.  In  meta- 
physics the  substance  hypothesis  had  led  to  views  as  far  apart  as 
materialism  and  occasionalism,  as  Spinoza's  monism  and  Leibniz' 
monadism;  and  this  divergence  of  opinion  certainly  promoted  a 
skeptical  attitude  toward  the  whole  endeavor  to  explain  the 
world  in  terms  of  substance.  In  natural  science  the  tendency  was 
more  and  more  to  lay  stress  upon  the  relations  between  things, 
and  less  and  less  upon  substance  and  attributes;  in  fact,  modern 
physics  was  largely  a  reaction  against  just  this  notion,  the  old  no- 
tion of  forms.  Especially  does  this  change  of  view  come  out  in 
the  downright  hostility  to  any  explanation  which  makes  use  of 
the  notion  of  force  or  forces.1  In  short,  the  growing  explicit  oppo- 
sition to  the  old  doctrine  of  substance  not  only  had  to  come, 
epistemology  or  no  epistemology,  but  did  come  through  many 
influences  other  than  the  study  of  knowledge. 

Moreover,  the  Kantian  and  post-Kantian  epistemology  has 
been  rather  a  conservative  influence  against  the  tendencies  of  the 
natural  scientists  and  of  some  metaphysicians.  Though  Kant 
admits  the  full  justice  of  Hume's  criticism  of  the  dogmatic  doc- 
trine of  substance,  he  endeavors  to  show  that  substance  is  a  neces- 
sary form  of  thought  and  has  validity  a  priori;  and  the  modern 

1  Cf.  the  opposition  to  Newton's  theory  of  gravitation  on  the  part  of  the  Car- 
tesians. 


THE  VERDICT  OF  HISTORY  91 

members  of  the  Kantian-Hegelian  schools,  in  their  doctrine  of  the 
absolute,  tend  strongly  to  uphold  the  substance-attribute  notion 
as  the  fundamental  notion  in  the  theory  of  reality.  Hence, 
whether  right  or  wrong,  the  modern  tendency  within  science  to  op- 
pose any  use  of  the  substance  notion  and  to  confine  the  proposi- 
tions of  science  to  assertions  of  relations  between  terms,  has 
little  indebtedness  at  least  to  German  epistemology. 

8.  In  regard  to  the  two  remaining  metaphysical  issues,  the  issue 
between  those  who  hold  to  the  organic  theory  of  reality,  or  pres- 
ent-day monism,  and  their  opponents,  the  pluralists,  and  again 
the  issue  between  the  idealistic  spiritualists  and  those  who  find 
their  views  unwarranted,  it  must  be  frankly  admitted  that  the 
influence    of    epistemology    has    been   very    great    indeed.     But 
here  again  the  question  transforms  itself  into  the  other  question, 
has  this  influence  been  for  good  or  for  bad  ?  —  a  question,  however, 
which  lies  beyond  the  field  of  our  present  inquiry.     Here,  then,  the 
dogmatist  must  be  content  to  urge  his  conviction  that  such  doc- 
trines should  be  based  by  their  upholders  upon  facts  and  princi- 
ples that  may  indeed  be  presupposed  by  a  particular  epistemology, 
but  that  themselves  are  truly  fundamental.     Until  this  is  done 
monism,  pluralism,  or  any  other  metaphysical  theory  is  a  house 
built  upon  the  sands. 

9.  I  have  appealed  to  history,  and  the  answer  seems  on  the  whole 
to  be  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  dogmatist's  prejudices  except  in 
the  case  of  certain  prominent  metaphysical  doctrines  of  to-day, 
which  are  explicitly  founded  by  their  advocates  upon  episte- 
mological    considerations.     But   even   here  the  dogmatist  finds 
the  influence  of  many  non-epistemological  factors,  such  as  the 
doctrines  of  evolutionary  biology  and  psychology.     Hence  the  fol- 
lowing conclusion  seems  to  be  just :    Where  the  change  in  our 
modern  views  of  nature  and  of  mind  is  admitted  by  all  to  have 
been  genuine  progress,  there  epistemology  has  not  played  the 
part  it  should  if  it  be  the  truly  fundamental  science;  for  this  prog- 
ress has  come  notoriously  from  other  sources  and  has  been  very 
influential  even  in  bringing  about  changes  within  epistemology 


92  METAPHYSICS  AND   EPISTEMOLOGY 

itself.  On  the  other  hand,  where  no  doubt  exists  that  episte- 
mology  has  been  supreme  in  its  influence,  there  one  finds  to- 
day the  most  serious  questioning  as  to  whether  the  influence  has 
been  good  or  bad. 

VI 

METAPHYSICS   SHOULD   BE   EMANCIPATED   FROM   EPISTEMOLOGY 

1.  WE  are  now  prepared  to  take  up  the  general  question, 
Should  not  metaphysics  be  emancipated  from  epistemology  ?  If 
epistemology  is  not  logically  fundamental,  if  epistemology  cannot 
of  itself  show  either  what  knowledge  is  possible  or  how  knowledge 
is  possible,  and  finally  if  epistemology  cannot  give  us  the  logical 
foundations  of  a  theory  of  reality,  may  we  not  conclude  that 
metaphysics  owes  neither  its  problems  nor  their  solution  es- 
pecially to  epistemology?  I  believe  that  we  may,  for  I  am  con- 
vinced that  all  the  reasons  for  making  metaphysics  identical  with 
epistemology  or  logically  and  methodologically  dependent  upon  it 
are  those  which  have  been  given  and  disputed. 

Metaphysics  as  a  logical  study  of  the  foundations  of  the  sciences 
needs  as  its  data  only  two  things,  the  sciences  in  their  most  rigor- 
ous formulation  and  formal  logic.  What  metaphysics  as  a  theory 
of  reality  needs  may  be  more  doubtful.  The  following  may 
serve  as  a  brief  and  tentative  answer.  It  needs  the  preceding 
branch  of  metaphysics,  for  that  study  will  reveal  the  theory  of 
reality  implicitly  contained  in  the  sciences;  and  with  this  meta- 
physics will  certainly  have  to  reckon.  Will  it  need  more  than 
this?  That  depends  upon  how  the  following  difficult  questions 
are  answered,  questions  which  themselves  perhaps  belong  quite 
within  metaphysics.  In  the  first  place,  will  not  logical  analysis 
reveal  besides  the  foundations  of  science  the  foundations  of  other 
independent  systems  of  propositions,  systems  at  least  implicitly 
asserted  in  man's  art,  in  his  morals,  and  in  his  religion  ?  If  so, 
will  not  the  theory  of  reality  have  to  presuppose  them?  Let 
me  reply,  Yes.  Secondly,  what  is  the  factual,  or  that  ultimate, 


METAPHYSICS  SHOULD   BE   EMANCIPATED       93 

concrete  which  we  observe  but  do  not  either  assume  or  infer? 
Can  there  be  a  science  just  of  it,  a  'Gegenstandstheorie,'  if  you 
will?  Is  this  ultimate  truly  analyzable;  or  is  it  alogical,  as 
Bergson  and  James  believe  ?  Here  let  me  reply :  If  there  be  such 
a  group  of  problems,  either  they  are  a  part  of  metaphysics  and  not 
of  some  more  nearly  ultimate  science  upon  which  metaphysics 
depends ;  or  they  and  their  solution  fall  within  the  bounds  of  the 
different  special  sciences  and  of  the  other  aforementioned  non- 
scientific  systems.  In  the  former  case,  our  non-metaphysical 
systems  will  presuppose  our  metaphysics,  whereas  in  the  latter 
case  metaphysics  will  arrive  at  this  body  of  information  by  logi- 
cal analysis  of  all  these  systems.  Probably  this  is  not  a  genuine 
disjunction,  and  both  propositions  are  in  part  true.  However,  all 
of  this  is  a  matter  not  of  theoretical  but  of  great  methodologi- 
cal importance;  for  it  reduces  to  the  purely  methodological 
question,  who  is  the  real  metaphysician,  the  real  authority  in 
metaphysics?  Is  he  mankind  at  large  or  is  he  the  professional 
metaphysician?  Finally  there  is  a  third  question:  May  not 
metaphysics  have  among  its  postulates  or  indemonstrable  propo- 
sitions some  that  are  nowhere  else  to  be  found,  that  are  peculiar 
to  metaphysics?  If  so,  these  parts  of  metaphysics  are  certainly 
fundamental.  In  short,  all  of  these  many  problems  (including 
logic)  are  fundamental,  and  the  sum  of  their  solutions  certainly 
constitutes  a  science  which  underlies  logically  the  remainder  of 
our  knowledge.  It  is  the  first  science;  and  if  so,  it  is  meta- 
physics. 

Further  we  may  make  the  following  general  statements  regard- 
ing the  methodological  indebtedness  of  metaphysics  to  other 
bodies  of  knowledge.  In  parts  it  may  be  indebted  to  none.  In 
great  part  it  is  surely  indebted  to  logic.  As  a  study  of  the  logical 
foundations  of  the  sciences,  it  has  to  be  given  the  sciences  themselves 
as  data.  Finally  as  the  theory  of  reality,  it  may  draw  information 
and  help  from  every  department  of  man's  intellectual  life.  The 
growth  of  science  can  revolutionize  metaphysics  as  it  did  in  the 
days  of  Galileo.  A  radical  change  in  one  or  more  of  the  postu- 


94  METAPHYSICS  AND   EPISTEMOLOGY 

lates  of  science  may  do  the  same,  and  so  also  may  a  great  empiri- 
cal discovery.  Then,  too,  as  man  grows  in  artistic  taste,  and  in 
moral  and  religious  insight,  he  discovers  new  and,  it  may  be, 
fundamental  truths.  If  so,  his  discovery  may  lead  him  to  revise 
radically  his  theory  of  reality  or  at  least  to  present  to  the  meta- 
physician new  problems  for  the  latter  to  solve. 

2.  Finally  we  come  to  the  special  question,  what  does  meta- 
physics owe  to  epistemology  ?    It  owes  much  by  way  of  sugges- 
tion.    The  story  of  how  human  knowledge  grows  in  the  individual 
and  in  the  race,  and  the  story  of  the  knowing  process  itself  do 
often  suggest  to  the  student  of  logical  analysis  what  to  look  for 
and  where  to  find  what  he  seeks.     For  example,  that  knowledge 
grows  by  the  trial  and  error  method,  or  the  experimental  method, 
indicates  at  once  that  science  as  a  system  of  propositions  has  as  its 
premises  many  unproved  assumptions,  postulates,  and  guesses. 
The  story  of  this  growth  indicates  also  that  the  work  of  the  meta- 
physician will  never  be  finished  as  long  as  man  keeps  growing  in- 
tellectually;    for  no  sooner  do  we  work  out  (as  the  philosophers 
did  in  the  Middle  Ages)  the  theory  of  reality  presupposed  in  or 
consistent  with  the  knowledge  of  one  age  than  the  work  has  to 
be  done  once  more  for  the  knowledge  of  a  new  age.     A  second 
example  is  the  great  mental  law  of  association  which  suggests  at 
once  (as  it  did  to  Hume  and  to  Kant)  that  causation  must  be  one 
of  the  fundamental  or  nearly  fundamental  postulates  of  science; 
and,  to  take  a  third  example,  the  theory  of  knowledge  can  throw 
much  light  upon  the  history  of  science,  and  the  history  of  science 
in  turn  is  full  of  suggestions  for  the  metaphysician. 

3.  All  this  is  true  of  the  methodological  relationship  of  epis- 
temology to  metaphysics,  and  it  would  be  foolish  indeed  not  to 
admit  it ;    but  at  the  same  time  we  must  not  forget  the  limitations 
of  this  indebtedness,  for  the  errors  that  can  then  arise  are,  as  we 
have  seen,  very  serious.     A  correct  epistemology  can  be  full  of 
valuable  suggestion  to  the  metaphysician;   but  this  science  is  in 
no  peculiar  respect  nor  to  any  peculiar  extent  fundamental  to 
metaphysics.     It  is  not  peculiarly  a  part  of  metaphysics,  nor  is 


METAPHYSICS  SHOULD  BE  EMANCIPATED       95 

it  in  any  respect  to  be  identified  with  metaphysics.  On  the  con- 
trary I  have  endeavored  to  show  that  epistemology  is  not  a  logi- 
cally fundamental  science,  that  the  solution  of  the  problem  of 
the  possibility  and  the  limits  of  knowledge  is  logically  subsequent 
to  some  at  least  of  the  special  sciences,  that  epistemology  cannot 
furnish  us  with  a  theory  of  reality,  that  metaphysics  owes  logi- 
cally neither  its  problems  nor  their  solution  to  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge, and  finally  that  though  the  full  verdict  of  history  has  not 
been  delivered,  there  is  strong  evidence  that  criticism  has  se- 
riously hindered  as  well  as  helped  metaphysics  during  the  past 
two  centuries.  If  these  conclusions  are  true,  then  metaphysics  is 
by  right  free  and  independent  of  epistemology  and  should  at  once 
proceed  to  emancipate  itself  entirely  from  the  dominion  of  this 
science.1 

1  Though  few  physicians  are  expert  in  diagnosing  their  own  case,  still  I  can 
perhaps  help  some  readers  to  discover  my  bias  or  prejudices.  As  we  look  back  over 
the  course  of  this  argument,  what  is  the  world  of  discourse  within  which  it  proceeds  ? 
The  answer  is,  logical  analysis.  There  are,  I  believe,  two  prominent  and  radically 
different  points  of  departure  nowadays  in  our  philosophical  studies.  One  man  is  im- 
pressed with  the  facts  of  psychology;  and  though  he  admits  that  psychology  itself 
is  one  of  the  special  sciences,  he  still  seeks  a  philosophical  foundation  by  means  of  a 
study  of  these  facts.  The  other  man,  though  not  blind  to  these  facts,  cannot  regard 
them  as  the  most  significant ;  rather  he  is  impressed  with  the  truth  that  the  chief 
business  of  science  is  to  demonstrate.  As  a  consequence,  the  question,  What  are 
the  premises  of  any  hypothesis  ?  is  the  all-important  philosophical  problem.  Every- 
where in  man's  knowledge  he  finds  two  sets  of  premises,  on  the  one  hand  the  prin- 
ciples of  formal  logic  and  on  the  other  hand  postulates  and  observed  truths,  or  facts. 
Now  the  sum  total  of  these  presuppositions  form  the  philosophical  foundation  upon 
which  he  believes  he  must  build;  and,  of  course,  he  sees  in  the  other  philosopher  a 
thinker  who  has  hopelessly  confused  psychology  and  logic.  In  short,  the  one  man 
is  temperamentally  a  psychologist;  the  other,  a  logician.  Moreover,  each  feels  that 
he  has  dug  deeper  down  for  his  foundation  than  has  the  other.  Hence  the  dead- 
lock where  neither  seems  able  to  convince  the  other,  and  where  our  ultimate  duty 
to  one  another  seems  to  be  not  to  try  to  persuade  or  to  refute  but  to  try  to  make 
our  positions  clear  to  each  other.  Even  though  each  party  may  see  truths  to  which 
the  other  is  blind,  and  even  though  the  ultimate  verdict  may  be  a  part  victory  for 
both,  I  am  convinced  that  the  two  positions  have  their  centers  at  different  points, 
and  that  these  points  are  mutually  repellent.  If  so,  one  is  essentially  right  and 
the  other  IB  essentially  wrong,  and  there  can  be  no  compromise. 


A  REALISTIC   THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 


A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

BY  RALPH  BARTON  PERRY 

I 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  NOTION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

EIGHT  years  ago,  in  describing  "a  curious  unrest  in  the  philo- 
sophic atmosphere  of  the  time,"  Professor  James  concluded  with 
the  remark  that  "strangest  of  all,  natural  realism,  so  long  decently 
buried,  raises  its  head  above  the  turf,  and  finds  glad  hands  out- 
stretched from  the  most  unlikely  quarters  to  help  it  to  its  feet 
again."  l  This  reanimated  corpse  is  now  fairly  on  its  feet,  and  able 
to  protest  with  Mark  Twain  that  the  reports  of  its  death  were 
"greatly  exaggerated."  As  a  living  and  hopeful  member  of  the 
philosophical  community,  it  is  naturally  concerned  that  its  iden- 
tity should  be  unmistakably  defined,  lest  it  should  again  be  care- 
lessly interred  or  reported  missing;  or  lest  in  the  me!6e  of  con- 
troversy it  should  suffer  from  blows  intended  for  another.  The 
present  essay  attempts  such  an  identification  of  realism  redivivus  — 
or  of  what  may  now  conveniently  be  designated  neo-realism. 

1.  It  is  necessary,  in  the  first  place,  to  explain  the  crucial  im- 
portance of  the  conception  of  'independence.'  For  the  term 
'realism'  is  also  traditionally  associated  with  another  conception, 
the  conception,  namely,  of  'substance.'  When  construed  in  this 
latter  sense,  realism  is  contrasted  with  'phenomenalism,'  'immedi- 
atism '  and  '  empiricism.'  It  is  taken  to  mean  that  the  real  is  not 
what  is  experienced,  but  some  substance  or  essence  which  lies  behind 
what  is  experienced.  The  real,  according  to  this  view,  is  not  con- 
stituted by  its  predicates,  but  is  manifested  in  them;  it  is  the 

1  James,  W.     Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,  39-40. 
99 


100    A  REALISTIC   THEORY  OF   INDEPENDENCE 

subject  that  owns  them,  the  ground  that  supports  them,  or  the 
cause  that  produces  them.  According  to  'phenomenalism,'  'im- 
mediatism,'  or  'empiricism,'  reality  coincides  with  appearance  — 
things  are  what  they  are  "known  as."  l  According  to  realism  in 
the  contrasted  sense,  reality  is  that  which  appears,  that  of  which 
something  is  known. 

2.  The  most  straightforward  statement  of  this  version  of 
realism  is  to  be  found  in  the  following  passage  from  Thomas 
Reid's  "Essays  on  the  Intellectual  Powers  of  Man":  "Things 
which  may  exist  by  themselves,  and  do  not  necessarily  suppose  the 
existence  of  anything  else,  are  called  substances;  and,  with  rela- 
tion to  the  qualities  or  attributes  that  belong  to  them,  they  are 
called  the  subjects  of  such  qualities  or  attributes.  All  the  things 
which  we  immediately  perceive  by  our  senses,  and  all  the  things  we 
are  conscious  of,  are  things  which  must  be  in  something  else,  as  their 
subject.  Thus  by  my  senses,  I  perceive  figure,  color,  hardness, 
softness,  motion,  resistance,  and  such  like  things.  But  these  are 
qualities  and  must  necessarily  be  in  something  that  is  figured, 
colored,  hard  or  soft,  that  moves,  or  resists.  It  is  not  to  these 
qualities,  but  to  that  which  is  the  subject  of  them,  that  we  give 
the  name  of  body.  ...  In  like  manner,  the  things  I  am  conscious 
of,  such  as  thought,  reasoning,  desire,  necessarily  suppose  something 
that  thinks,  that  reasons,  that  desires.  We  do  not  give  the  name  of 
mind  to  thought,  reason,  or  desire ;  but  to  that  being  which  thinks, 
which  reasons,  and  which  desires." 2 

The  peculiarity  of  such  a  realism  as  this  lies  in  the  absolute  dis- 
tinction between  real  body  and  real  mind,  as  substances,  and  the 
'qualities'  or  'attributes'  by  which  they  are  known.  The  'reals' 
are  different  from  the  content  of  knowledge.  Whether  they  are 
also  independent  is  a  second  and  more  ambiguous  question.  That 
body  is  independent  of  mind  would  seem  to  be  clear,  in  that  as 

1  Cf.  James,  W.,  Pragmatism,  50. 

1  Reid,  T.,  Essays  on  the  Intellectual  Powers  of  Man,  Essay  I,  Ch.  II,  Hamil- 
ton's edition  (1895),  232.  For  an  account  of  the  development  of  the  same  general 
view  in  recent  German  philosophy,  cf.  Stein,  L.,  PhUosophische  Strdmungen  der 
Gegenwart,  Ch.  VI. 


THE  NOTION   OF  INDEPENDENCE  101 

substances  bodies  "may  exist  by  themselves,"  while  bodily  qualities 
"must  necessarily  be  in"  bodily  substances.  The  qualities  them- 
selves, whether  bodily  or  mental,  are  evidently  not  independent 
in  that  they  "must  be  in  something  else."  Whether  the  sub- 
stances themselves  are  independent  of  the  qualities  that  are  in 
them  is  more  doubtful.  Locke,  whose  view  of  substance  closely 
resembles  Reid's,  regards  it  as  probable  that  the  soul  may  exist 
without  thinking,  that  its  nature,  in  other  words,  is  independent  of 
those  forms  of  consciousness  by  which  it  is  known.1  That  the  same 
view  might  be  held  with  reference  to  bodies  is  suggested  by  Locke's 
repeated  assertion  that  "the  real  essences,  on  which  depend  their 
properties  and  operations,  are  unknown  to  us."  2 

It  is  probably  safer,  however,  to  conclude  that  for  both  Locke  and 
Reid,  some  properties,  namely,  the  'primary'  qualities,  extension, 
hardness,  etc.,  belong  necessarily  to  the  nature  of  the  body.  There 
is  a  notable  difference  between  these  two  authors  as  respects  the 
ground  of  the  distinction  between  'primary'  and  'secondary' 
qualities.  For  Locke,  the  primary  qualities  are  such  as  produce 
similar  ideas  in  the  mind.  Thus  the  quality  'hardness,'  and  the 
'idea  of  hardness'  produced  by  it,  are  similar.  The  secondary 
qualities  are  such  as  produce  dissimilar  ideas  in  the  mind,  as  when 
"a  violet  by  the  impulse  of  such  insensible  particles  of  matter  of 
peculiar  figures  and  bulks,  and  in  different  degrees  and  modifica- 
tions of  their  motions,  causes  the  ideas  of  the  blue  color  and  sweet 
scent  of  that  flower  to  be  produced  in  our  minds."  3  Reid,  on  the 
other  hand,  sought  to  avoid  that  "theory  of  ideas"  which  he  held 
to  be  the  besetting  sin  of  philosophy.  Knowledge  is  not  a  having 
of  ideas  produced  in  the  mind  by  things.  It  is  an  act  of  belief  in 

1  Cf.  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding,  Book  II,  Ch.  I,  §§  10  ff.     For 
Locke's  view  of  substance,  cf  .  Controversy  with  the  Bishop  of  Worcester,  No.  IV 
(St.  John's  Edition,  Vol.  II,  352)  :    "We  cannot  conceive  how  simple  ideas  of  sen- 
sible qualities  should  subsist  alone,  and,  therefore,  we  suppose  them  to  exist  in, 
and  to  be  supported  by,  some  common  subject  ;  which  support  we  denote  by  the 
name  substance." 

2  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding,  Book  IV,  Ch.  "VT,  §  12. 
»  Op.  cit.,  Book  II,  Ch.  VIII,  §  13.     Cf.  §§  7-26,  passim. 


OK 


102    A   REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

an  object,  of  which  one  must  have  a  'conception.'  Precisely  how 
Reid  distinguished  'conception'  from  'idea'  is  far  from  clear. 
But  it  is  evident  that  he  wished  to  get  rid  of  the  traditional  barrier 
between  the  mind  and  its  objects.  The  'conception'  was  an  act  or 
instrument  of  the  mind  itself,  and  not  a  product  or  counterpart  of  the 
things.  It  was  part  of  that  faculty  of  knowing  which  the  author 
was  satisfied  to  leave  inexplicable  since  he  was  confident  that  it 
must  in  any  case  be  presupposed.1  In  any  case  primary  and 
secondary  qualities  are  distinguished  without  reference  to  'ideas,' 
the  former  being  the  qualities  that  are  known  directly  and  dis- 
tinctly, the  qualities  of  which  one  knows  "what  they  are  in  them- 
selves." "Therefore,"  says  Reid,  "were  I  to  make  a  division  of 
the  qualities  of  bodies  as  they  appear  to  our  senses,  I  would  divide 
them  first  into  those  that  are  manifest  and  those  that  are  occult." 
Reid's  '  manifest '  qualities  correspond  to  Locke's  primary  qualities, 
such  as  'extension,'  'hardness,'  etc.;  and  his  'occult'  qualities 
comprise  Locke's  secondary  qualities,  together  with  the  feelings 
which  bodies  induce  hi  the  organism  and  the  'powers'  which  they 
display  in  their  operations  on  one  another.2 

Thus  with  Reid  the  qualities  of  bodies,  whether  manifest  or  oc- 
cult, belong  to  the  bodies  themselves.  They  are  not  primarily 
'ideas,'  of  which  some  are  similar  and  some  dissimilar  to  bodies. 
Their  original  locus  is  in  the  bodies  themselves.  There  can,  there- 
fore, be  no  question  of  their  remaining  mere  ideas  through  the  un- 
certainty of  the  existence  of  their  bodily  counterparts.  In  other 
words,  Reid  believes  himself  to  have  removed  the  assumption 
which  underlies  the  idealism  of  Berkeley  and  Hume.  And  yet  the 
realism  of  Reid  is  open  to  a  very  obvious  idealistic  rejoinder.  For 
the  qualities  do  not  constitute  the  body.  He  makes  it  perfectly 
evident  that  the  principle  of  substance  is  the  controlling  motive 
in  his  thought.  He  thinks  that "  it  requires  some  ripeness  of  under- 

1  Essays  on  the  Intellectual  Powers  of  Man,  Essay  II,  Ch.  XX.  For  the 
difficulties  and  ambiguities  of  Reid's  view,  cf.  Sir  William  Hamilton's  notes  to  his 
edition  of  this  and  other  essays. 

*  Op.  cit.  (1895),  313,  322. 


THE  NOTION  OF  INDEPENDENCE  103 

standing  to  distinguish  the  qualities  of  a  body  from  the  body." 
The  relation  of  the  qualities  to  the  bodily  "substratum"  must 
doubtless  remain  "obscure";  it  "is  not,  however,  so  dark  but 
that  it  is  easily  distinguished  from  all  other  relations."  1  The 
qualities  of  bodies  are  thus  left  in  a  precarious  situation.  Since 
they  are  not  identified  with  the  body,  they  may  the  more  easily 
be  captured  by  mind  and  converted  into  ideas;  and  since  body 
bereft  of  them  is  reduced  to  a  nullity,  it  may  the  more  easily  be 
ignored  as  a  non-entity.  Thus,  the  principle  of  substance  betrays 
realism  into  the  hands  of  its  enemy. 

3.  It  is  reasonably  clear,  then,  that  the  traditional  realism  has 
been  both  confused  and  compromised  by  an  alliance  with  substan- 
tialism.  In  view  of  this  fact,  the  critics  of  realism  are  scarcely  to 
be  blamed  if  they  have  not  shown  a  nicety  of  discrimination  which 
realists  themselves  have  failed  to  show.  Of  contemporary  critics, 
Professor  Royce  is  especially  notable  for  expressly  identifying 
realism  with  the  theory  of  independence.  Nevertheless,  even  this 
writer  has  not  succeeded  wholly  in  separating  this  theory  from 
substantialism.  Thus  he  distinguishes  three  "popular  ontological 
predicates."  "To  be  immediate,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  to  be  well 
founded  in  what  is  not  immediate,  and,  thirdly,  to  be  genuine  and 
true,  —  these  seem  to  be  the  three  principal  conceptions  of  what  it 
is  to  be  real  in  the  popular  ontology."  The  author  presently  con- 
cludes that  realism  is  "a  synthesis  of  the  three  popular  ontological 
predicates,  although,  as  history  shows,  with  a  preference  for  the 
second  predicate."  In  other  words,  "realism  is  fond  of  sub- 
•  stances,  of  'inner'  or  of  'deeper'  fundamental  facts,  and  of  inacces- 
sible universes."  2  Now  it  happens  that  the  realism  of  the  present 
day  has  strong  aversion  for  these  things.  It  is  in  sympathy  with 
the  whole  modern  trend  of  thought  toward  identifying  reality  with 
the  elements,  processes,  and  systems  of  experience.  But  it  main- 
tains that  these  elements,  processes,  and  systems  are  independent 

» Ibid.,  323. 

2  Royce,  J.,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  First  Series,  54-55,  68 ;   cf.  also  63, 
66,  67,  86,  106,  115. 


104    A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

of  being  experienced.  Although  they  may  compose  or  enter  into  an 
experience,  they  need  not  do  so.  In  other  words,  neo-realism  as- 
serts the  independence  of  the  experienced  on  the  act  of  experience ; 
or  of  the  sensible  and  intelligible  properties  of  things  on  the  opera- 
tions of  sensation  and  intellection.  Thus  realism  must  purify  the 
notion  of  independence  of  all  suggestions  of  other-ness,  remote- 
ness, or  inaccessibility,  not  only  for  the  sake  of  a  full  and  forcible 
presentation  of  its  case,  but  even  to  avoid  being  confused  with  a 
whole  alien  and  objectionable  tendency  of  thought. 

4.  It  must  be  confessed  that  realists  have  not  as  yet  taken  pains 
to  define  'independence.'  Thus  in  a  discussion  before  the  Aristo- 
telian Society  of  the  question,  "Are  Secondary  Qualities  Independ- 
ent of  Perception,"  Mr.  Nunn,  as  a  realist,  adopts  the  "affirmative 
answer."  1  And  in  reply,  Mr.  Schiller  justly  puts  the  question, 
"What  does  independent  mean  to  a  realist?"  But  as  Mr. 
Schiller  himself  remarks,  the  idealist  has  been  no  more  precise  in 
his  use  of  the  term  than  the  realist.  Both  Royce  and  Joachim, 
who,  like  Royce,  explicitly  identifies  realism  with  the  independence 
theory,  constantly  employ  the  term  in  their  polemic  without  under- 
taking to  define  it.  Both  of  these  writers  characterize  an  independ- 
ent entity  as  that  to  which  another  entity  "makes  no  difference."  2 
But  this  is  only  a  figurative  paraphrase  of  the  term.  It  introduces 
practical  or  dynamical  considerations  which  are  more  confusing 
than  clarifying. 

Nor  can  the  idealist  be  said  to  have  given  a  satisfactory  account 
of  his  own  notion  of  independence.  Thus  Mr.  Joachim  apparently 
maintains  that  truth  is  "independent  of  the  intuition  qua  this  act 
of  intuiting  here  and  now."  3  Similarly,  the  majority  of  contem- 
porary idealists  insist  strenuously  that  the  logical  or  universal  prin- 
ciples are  independent  of  the  psychological  circumstances  attending 
their  appearance  in  finite  minds.  But  so  far  as  I  know  the  precise 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  N.  S.,  1910,  10,  191,  218. 
*  Royce,  op.  cit.,  118,  120,   123.     According  to  Joachim,  realism  asserts  that 
'experiencing  makes  no  difference  to  the  facts'  (The  Nature  of  Truth,  33,  58). 
»  Op.  cU.,  52. 


THE  NOTION  OF  INDEPENDENCE  105 

meaning  of  the  term  in  this  application  is  left  to  be  determined  by 
common  sense.  Nor  has  the  idealist  ever  given  a  general  and  pre- 
cise definition  of  the  correlative  notion  of  dependence.  This  notion 
is  essential  to  the  idealistic  theory  of  the  internality  of  relations,  and 
to  such  fundamental  conceptions  as  'coherence,'  'synthetic  unity,' 
'significant  whole.'  And  if  the  idealist's  polemic  against  realism 
is  successful,  we  are  left  to  conclude  that  experiencing  does  "make 
a  difference"  to  facts.  This  is  as  truly  the  central  contention  of 
idealism  as  the  contrary  is  the  central  contention  of  realism.  But 
we  are  left  in  the  dark  as  to  the  precise  nature  of  the  dependence 
which  is  predicated.  Idealism  has  even  derived  a  certain  advan- 
tage from  its  failure  to  define  dependence.  For  it  has  been  able  to 
vary  the  meaning  to  suit  the  polemical  exigency.  And  this  ab- 
sence of  explicit  definition  has  enabled  idealism  to  profit  by  the 
vague  but  natural  assumption  that  any  relation  whatsoever  in- 
volves dependence.  To  prove  dependence  idealism  has  not  found 
it  necessary  to  do  more  than  to  establish  some  sort  of  connection 
between  the  term  in  question  and  some  other  term.  The  moment 
dependence  is  distinguished  from  bare  relation,  a  very  consider- 
able portion  of  idealistic  reasoning  is  rendered  worthless  —  a  mere 
recitation  of  the  obvious  and  trivial. 

A  realist  might  fairly  take  the  position,  then,  that  he  means  by 
independence  the  negative  of  what  his  opponents  mean  by  depend- 
ence. If  a  vague,  common-sense  notion  will  suffice  in  the  one  case, 
it  will  suffice  also  in  the  other.  The  question  can  be  argued  in  the 
vague  terms  common  to  both  parties;  and  this  is,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  what  has  thus  far  taken  place.  But  in  adopting  such  a  course, 
realism  loses  an  important  opportunity.  Realism  is  responsible 
for  forcing  this  issue  of  dependence  or  independence,  and  should 
undertake  to  clarify  the  conception  to  which  it  has  given  a  fresh 
prominence.  Realism  as  a  constructive  doctrine  is  professedly  con- 
cerned with  the  merits  of  the  question  rather  than  with  the  turn  of 
controversy.  Nor  will  any  realist  be  deterred  from  thorough  analysis 
by  fear  of  enlightening  his  adversary.  Furthermore,  the  present 
realistic  movement  is  largely  inspired  by  the  logical  motive,  and 
finds  the  clarification  of  current  notions  a  proper  and  congenial  task. 


106      A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 


II 

MEANINGS   OF   THE   TERM   DEPENDENCE 

THE  term  'independence'  is  evidently  used  to  deny  'dependence.' 
Like  other  negative  terms  such  as  'immaterial,'  'unworldly,'  etc., 
it  has  acquired  secondary  meanings  of  a  positive  character.  Thus 
political  independence  has  come  to  signify  self-government,  or 
certain  positive  'liberties/  such  as  'free  speech'  and  'freedom  of 
the  press.'  Similarly,  practical  independence  may  mean  com- 
petency, self-reliance,  or  initiative.  But  with  these  derived  mean- 
ings we  here  have  nothing  to  do.  They  are  particular  cases  of 
independence  in  which  the  circumstances  of  the  application  have 
impregnated  the  general  meaning  of  the  conception.  The  primary 
and  general  meaning  of  independence  is  non-dependence. 

Hence  we  must  begin  our  analysis  with  an  enumeration  of  the 
various  senses  in  which  the  term  'dependence'  may  be  intelligibly 
used.  One  cannot  be  at  all  confident  that  such  a  list  as  follows  is 
final,  either  in  respect  of  completeness  or  of  logical  coordination. 
Indeed,  one  may  feel  reasonably  sure  that  it  is  not.  But  while 
inviting  corrections  and  additions,  one  may  hope  that  such  a  list 
will  at  least  cover  the  various  senses  of  the  terms  that  are  likely  to 
be  in  question  in  connection  with  the  present  issue. 

1.  Relation.  —  Even  though  one  may  conclude  that  bare  'rela- 
tion' is  so  radically  different  from  the  types  of  dependence  that 
follow  as  to  justify  its  eventual  rejection  from  the  list,  it  is  impor- 
tant to  include  it  provisionally.  We  must  have  this  conception 
before  us  from  the  outset,  since  it  will  figure  so  prominently  in  our 
conclusions. 

It  is  not  possible  to  define  'relation.'  It  must  either  be  accepted 
as  an  ultimate  logical  category,  or  be  simply  cast  out  altogether 
on  the  ground  of  the  alleged  dialectical  difficulties  in  which  it  is 
involved.  But  writers  like  Bradley  who  have  thus  rejected  it  have 
confessed  their  inability  to  find  a  satisfactory  substitute,  and  have 
perforce  taken  refuge  in  agnosticism.  That  these  dialectical  diffi- 


MEANINGS   OF  THE  TERM  DEPENDENCE      107 

culties  are  artificial,  has,  I  think,  been  demonstrated  by  James.1 
All  exact  or  analytical  thinking,  as  at  present  carried  on,  is  depend- 
ent on  the  conception  of  relation;  and  the  empirical  testimony 
in  its  favor  is  so  overwhelming  as  to  justify  its  acceptance  without 
further  ado.  It  is  true  that  any  attempt  to  deal  with  relations 
systematically  at  once  encounters  doubtful  cases,  such  as  'iden- 
tity' and  'difference.'  But  the  unambiguous  cases  such  as  'be- 
fore,' 'after,'  'more,'  'less,'  'like,'  'unlike,'  etc.,  are  abundantly 
sufficient  to  establish  the  genus. 

2.  Whole-part.2  —  A  whole  is  said  to  be  dependent  on  its  parts,  — 
on  what  it  contains,  and  can  be  divided  or  analyzed  into.     It  is 
worth  while  to  introduce  at  this  point  a  distinction  between  'ma- 
terial' and  'formal'  instances  of  the  whole-part  dependence.     The 
first  is  exhibited  in  the  relation  between  the  present  city  of  London 
and  Trafalgar  Square,  or  between  the  existing  government  of  the 
United  States  and  President  Taft.     The  second  is  exhibited  in  the 
relation  between  a  city  and  its  streets,  or  between  a  government  and 
its  chief  executive.     In  other  words,  a  material  relation  is  a  rela- 
tion between  particular  values  of  variables,  while  a  formal  relation 
subsists  between  the  variables  themselves.     The  dependence  of 
whole  on  part  may  be  of  either  type. 

3.  Part-whole.  —  Parts  are  said  to  be  dependent  on  the  whole 
to  which  they  belong  when  these  wholes  are  'organic.'     The  dis- 
tinction between  'formal'  and  'material'  may  be  applied  here  also. 
Thus  the  hypothenuse  of  a  right-angle  triangle  is  formally  de- 
pendent on  the  definition  of  the  right-angle  triangle.     Not  only 
does  it  derive  its  meaning  from  its  participation  in  the  whole,  but 
its  magnitude  is  determined  by  its  interrelation  with  other  parts, 
such  as  the  opposite  angle  and  its  adjacent  sides.     A  particular 
hypothenuse  is  likewise  both  defined  and  determined  by  its  ma- 
terial membership  in  the  particular  triangle  to  which  it  belongs. 
Similarly,  an  organ  or  member  in  the  biological  sense  is  said  to  be 
dependent  both  formally,  as  respects  its  meaning,  and  materially, 

1  "The  Thing  and  its  Relations,"  Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,  III. 

2  Cf .  also  Spaulding,  below. 


108      A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

as  respects  its  structure  and  function,  on  the  integrity  of  the  organ- 
ism to  which  it  belongs. 

But  such  dependence  would  appear  to  be  reducible  to  dependence 
of  other  types.  Thus  when  one  says  that  the  hypothenuse  depends 
on  the  right-angle  triangle  for  its  meaning,  or  that  the  conception 
of  an  hypothenuse  depends  on  the  conception  of  a  right-angle  tri- 
angle, we  are  virtually  naming  a  part  for  its  participation  in  a  whole. 
We  are  virtually  saying  that  the  side-opposite-the-right-angle-of-a- 
triangle  cannot  be  such  without  the  triangle.  But  this  is  no  more 
than  to  say  that  the  conception  of  a  triangle  depends  on  the  con- 
ception of  a  triangle,  which  is  as  redundant  as  it  is  obvious.  Or  it 
may  be  construed  as  meaning  that  a  part  cannot  be  a  part,  that  is, 
belong  to  a  whole,  without  the  whole.  But  this  is  equivalent  to 
saying  that  the  complex  relationship  of  part  and  whole  depends  on 
the  whole  as  one  of  its  terms.  And  this  is  a  case  of  dependence 
of  whole  on  part,  and  not  of  part  on  whole. 

Similarly,  to  say  that  the  length  of  the  hypothenuse  is  materially 
dependent  on  the  magnitude  of  the  other  sides  and  the  included 
angle,  is  virtually  to  say  that  an  interdependence  of  parts  consti- 
tutes the  nature  of  a  certain  whole.  The  dependence  of  the  part 
is  here  conditional  on  its  membership  in  the  whole ;  and  its  depend- 
ence is  on  the  other  parts,  not  on  the  whole.  We  are  simply  say- 
ing that  in  so  far  as  an  element  belongs  to  a  certain  whole  it  must 
possess  the  relations  proper  to  it  as  a  part  of  that  whole.  We  do 
not  assert  that  the  element  is  dependent  on  its  membership,  and 
thus  categorically  dependent  on  the  whole;  but  only  that  if  a  line 
is  to  assume  the  role  of  an  hypothenuse,  it  must  play  the  part. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  evidently  a  new  kind  of  dependence 
here  exhibited  by  the  relation  between  part  and  part.  But  as  this 
is  not  a  part-whole  dependence,  it  will  receive  consideration  else- 
where, under  causality. 

The  dependence  of  members  of  a  living  organism  may  be  disposed 
of  in  the  same  manner.1  The  respiratory  system  cannot  be  a  vital 
function  without  the  whole  organism.  But  this  is  merely  to  say 

1  Cf.  also  Spaulding,  below,  243  ff. 


MEANINGS  OF  THE   TERM  DEPENDENCE       109 

that  it  cannot  belong  to  an  organism  without  an  organism  to  belong 
to.  To  make  the  dependence  of  the  part  evident  one  must  describe 
the  part  as  part-of-whole.  But  the  dependence  of  member-of- 
organism  on  organism  is  not  a  dependence  of  part  on  whole,  but 
rather  a  dependence  of  whole  on  part.  It  asserts  the  dependence 
of  a  complex  relationship  on  one  of  its  terms.  The  dependence  of 
the  respiratory  system  on  the  circulatory  system,  however,  means 
that  the  two  are  connected  by  the  laws  of  the  complex  process  to 
which  they  belong;  or  that  the  one  supplies  the  necessary  condi- 
tions of  the  other ;  both  of  which  relations  would  be  instances  of 
causal  rather  than  of  part-whole  dependence. 

4.  Thing-attribute.  —  Whether  the  thing-attribute  relation  is  or 
is  not  a  case  of  the  whole-part  relation  need  not  here  be  decided. 
But  it  is  clear,  I  think,  that  the  relation  presents  no  novelties  in 
connection  with  the  matter  of  dependence.     It  is  doubtful,  as  we 
have  seen,  whether  in  some  varieties  of  substantialism  the  thing 
is  dependent  on  its  attributes  at  all.     If  not,  then  the  relation  is 
not  a  case  in  point.     But  where  a  thing  is  regarded  as  dependent  on 
its  attributes,  it  is  either  'made  up'  of  them,  or  defined  'in  terms'  of 
them.     It  seems  clear  that  except  for  an  agnostic  substantialism 
a  thing  must  be  regarded  as  dependent  on  its  attributes  in  that  they 
are  in  it  or  of  it.     Both  would  be  instances  of  the  whole-part  type 
of  dependence,  as  described  above. 

5.  Attribute-thing.  —  The  question  of  the  dependence  of  attri- 
butes on  the  thing  to  which  they  belong,  resembles  the  question 
of  the  dependence  of  part  on  whole.     Red  cannot  be  attribute  of 
the  rose  without  the  rose ;  nor  would  it  bear  the  peculiar  relation 
that  it  does  to  odor,  form,  and  growth  of  the  rose,  were  it  not  for 
the  nature  of  the  rose  as  a  whole.     But  this  will,  I  think,  turn  out 
to  mean  either  that  a  rose  is  a  rose  (redundancy) ;  or  that  the  red- 
rose  relationship  depends  on  'rose'  as  one  of  its  terms  (whole-part) ; 
or  that  the  redness  of  the  rose  is  determined  by  its  age,  chemical 
structure,  nutrition,  etc.  (causation).     We  may  therefore  dispense 
with  the  attribute-thing  relation  as  a  primary  type  of  dependence. 

6.  Causation.  —  It  is  desirable  so  far  as  possible  to  avoid  staking 


110      A   REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

the  issue  of  dependence  on  a  special  theory  of  causation.  Never- 
theless, it  is  impossible  to  allow  a  certain  theory  of  causality  to 
remain  at  large,  lest  it  upset  our  calculations  at  the  eleventh  hour. 
I  refer  to  the  theory  that  causation  is  creation  ex  nihilo  by  an  'ac- 
tivity.' I  do  not  mean  in  the  least  to  exclude  the  category  of  pur- 
pose ;  i.e.  to  suggest  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  moral  or  rational 
causation.  I  mean  to  insist  only  that  so  far  as  causation  is  observ- 
able or  verifiable  at  all,  in  so  far  as  it  can  hi  any  given  instance  be 
profitably  discussed,  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  complex  or  process  in 
which  there  is  a  relation  of  necessity  between  distinguishable  and 
definable  parts.  The  cause  must  be  displayed,  as  well  as  the  effect ; 
it  must  not  be  kept  in  the  background  a  recondite  and  incalculable 
factor.  I  shall  not  argue  the  matter  further  than  to  appeal  to  the 
fact  that  the  'creation'  theory  has  long  since  been  discredited  in 
science  and  all  other  exact  discourse. 

If  this  possibility  be  excluded,  there  need,  I  think,  be  no  further 
occasion  for  dispute  here.  Causality  is  a  material  relation  between 
two  complexes,  derived  from  a  primary  formal  relation  between 
their  constituent  variables.  Thus  if  v=gt,  for  all  values  of  these 
variables,  then  any  given  velocity  (v),  is  dependent  on  the  constant 
of  gravity  (gf),  and  some  magnitude  of  time  (f).  The  formal  rela- 
tion among  the  variables  is  called  the  'law,'  and  the  material  de- 
termination of  the  values  of  the  variables,  as  prescribed  by  the  law, 
is  causation. 

It  would,  perhaps,  be  more  in  keeping  with  verbal  usage  to  con- 
fine the  term  'causation*  to  a  special  variety  of  the  type  of  de- 
pendence just  described;  that  variety,  namely,  in  which  a  com- 
plex occurring  later  in  time  is  determined  by  a  complex  occurring 
earlier  in  time.  In  other  words,  it  is  customary  to  limit  the  ad- 
jective '  causal '  to  laws  which  contain  time  as  a  variable ;  and  to 
treat  time  in  the  positive  or  forward  direction  as  the  independent 
variable.  Or  one  may  still  further  narrow  the  conception  of  cause 
to  mean  those  other  values  which  together  with  time  determine  the 
value  of  a  future  complex. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  that  causation  is  conditioned  by  the  law. 


MEANINGS   OF  THE  TERM  DEPENDENCE       111 

In  other  words,  it  takes  place  only  within  the  system  which  the  law 
describes;  and  can  be  attributed  to  a  complex  only  when  the  com- 
plex is  identified  as  "a  case  of"  the  system.  Thus  a  complex  which 
is  identified  as  a  member  of  the  gravitational  system  is  caused,  as 
respects  its  position,  velocity,  orbit,  etc.,  by  the  distances  and  masses 
of  surrounding  bodies.  Causes  and  effects  are  thus  interdependent 
within  the  given  system,  or  under  the  law.  But  this  leaves  open  the 
question  of  whether  they  are  dependent  on  the  existence  of  the  system 
or  the  law.  These  determine  their  behavior  under  certain  condi- 
tions, but  do  not  prove  that  the  conditions  themselves  are  necessary. 
For  it  is  possible  that  a  given  complex  should  be  accounted  for  in 
terms  of  one  system,  and  yet  conform  to  the  requirements  of  an- 
other system  as  well.  Suppose,  for  example,  the  position  of  a  body, 
a  to  be  defined  in  terms  of  its  direction  and  distance  from  a  second 
body,  b;  and  suppose  it  to  be  also  defined  in  terms  of  its  direction 
and  distance  from  a  third  body,  c.  It  will  then  be  the  case  that 
the  position  of  a  is  unequivocally  defined  in  terms  of  either  a  or  of  6. 
Similarly,  the  kinetic  energy  of  a  body  is  definable  in  terms  of  its 
equivalence  to  the  potential  energy  that  has  been  converted  into 
it ;  or  in  terms  of  the  energy  of  heat  into  which  it  may  be  con- 
verted. In  such  cases,  it  is  more  correct  to  say  that  the  complex 
in  question  is  not  dependent  on  either  determination,  in  view  of  its 
possessing  another  determination  which  is  sufficient  to  account  for 
it.  It  follows  that  a  is  dependent  on  b  in  the  causal  sense,  only  pro- 
vided a  is  completely  determined  exclusively  within  the  system  in 
which  it  is  the  effect  of  6;  only  provided,  in  short,  it  has  no  other 
sufficient  cause. 

7.  Reciprocity.  —  It  is  customary  to  use  the  term  'reciprocity* 
to  express  a  relation  of  the  same  type  as  causation,  but  without 
the  same  emphasis  on  temporal  antecedence  and  consequence.  It 
is  evident  that  the  relation  among  the  various  values  of  the  vari- 
ables of  a  law  is  mutual.  It  is  possible  not  only  to  predict  the  fu- 
ture, but  also  in  like  manner  to  infer  the  past.  Similarly  it  is 
possible  to  infer  simultaneities,  as  e.g.,  in  the  case  of  the  configura- 
tion of  the  planetary  system,  or  the  co-presence  of  extension  and 


112      A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

color  in  the  visual  field.  It  is  not  even  necessary  that  time  should 
enter  into  such  calculations  at  all ;  as  is  illustrated  by  the  inter- 
dependence of  spacial  magnitudes  as  formulated  by  geometry. 
'Reciprocity/  then,  may  be  taken  to  mean  the  mutual  deter- 
mination of  values  of  variables  under  the  law,  where  the  factor  of 
time-direction  is  not  essential.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  the  most 
familiar  cases  are  cases  of  causation,  and  inasmuch  as  the  under- 
lying principle  is  the  same,  I  shall  hereafter  omit  reciprocity  and 
speak  only  of  causation.  I  shall  assume,  in  other  words,  that 
causal  dependence  is  reciprocal. 

8.  Implying.  —  Finally,  there  is1  the  simpler  logical  relation  of 
implication.     It  is  unnecessary  to  discuss  the  question  as  to  whether 
this  is  or  is  not  a  '  primitive '  conception.     Mr.  Russell  shows  that 
it  may  be  expressed  in  terms  of  other  conceptions,  such  as  '  contra- 
diction' and  'logical  addition';1  but  in  any  case  there  is  some 
fundamental  form  of  logical  necessity. 

It  is  important  to  point  out  that  the  relation  of  implication  is 
not  a  symmetrical  one.  That  which  implies  is  dependent  in  one 
sense ;  and  that  which  is  implied,  in  another.  Thus  the  premises 
of  a  syllogism  cannot  both  be  true  unless  the  conclusion  is  true ; 
while  the  conclusion  on  the  other  hand  may  be  true  even  though 
the  premises  be  false.  Only  the  dependence  of  the  implier  on  the 
implied  is  positive  and  unqualified. 

9.  Being  implied.  —  That  which  is  implied,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  dependent  on  the  implier  only  in  the  limited  sense  already  noted 
in  the  discussion  of  causation.     For  the  implied  may  be  otherwise 
implied.     That  which  is  implied  by  two  or  more  sets  of  premises 
cannot  be  said  to  be  dependent  on  any  one  of  these  sets.     In  the 
absence  of  any  one  it  would  none  the  less  be  necessitated  by  the 
others.    Its  dependence,  in  other  words,  is  limited  to  the  specific 
logical  system  in  question. 

Because  of  this  fact,  the  ordinary  mathematical  conceptions  of 
dependence  and  independence  are  not  of  material  assistance  in  our 
present  task.  The  'dependent  variable'  is  that  variable  whose 

1  Principia  Mathematics,  I,  6  ff. 


MEANING  OF  INDEPENDENCE  IN  NEO-REALISM     113 

value  is  derived  by  implication  when  a  value  is  assigned  to  another 
value,  called  the  'independent  variable.'  But  since  the  operation 
may  be  reversed,  the  one  variable  is  logically  as  dependent  as  the 
other.  Furthermore,  the  question  as  to  whether  the  value  of  the 
dependent  variable  can  be  otherwise  derived,  is  not  raised.  Simi- 
larly, an  'independent  postulate'  is  a  postulate  in  a  given  system 
that  is  co-determinant  with  the  other  postulates,  but  cannot  be 
deduced  as  a  theorem  from  these  other  postulates.1  But  the  de- 
pendence of  a  postulate  as  established  by  this  criterion  is  relative 
to  the  system  in  question.  By  virtue  of  being  a  theorem  in  another 
system,  it  might  be  independent  of  the  first  system.  We  conclude, 
therefore,  that  a  is  not  made  unqualifiedly  dependent  on  6  through 
being  implied  by  it,  unless  it  is  implied  only  by  6. 

Omitting  from  the  above  list  of  possible  meanings  of  the  term 
'dependence'  those  which  involve  needless  repetition,  we  are  left 
with  five :  relation,  whole-part,  exclusive  causation,  implying,  being 
exclusively  implied.  It  is  not  claimed  that  these  are  logically  ul- 
timate or  coordinate,  but  only  that  they  are  intelligible,  and,  so 
far  as  our  main  problem  is  concerned,  complete. 


Ill 

THE   MEANING   OF  INDEPENDENCE   IN   NEO-REALISM 

WE  are  now  in  a  position  to  formulate  the  realistic  notion  of 
independence,  reserving  the  proof  and  the  applications  for  a 
later  portion  of  the  paper. 

1.  Independence  is  not  non-relation.2  —  Realism  does  not  deny 
non-relation.3  But  it  is  not  non-relation  which  the  realist  has  in 

1  Cf.  Huntington,  E.  V.,  Monographs  on  Topics  of  Modern  Mathematics, 
edited  by  Young,  J.  W.  A.,  169. 

1  Cf.  also  Spaulding,  below. 

*  Whether  the  conception  of  non-relation  is  tenable  or  not  will,  I  think,  be 
found  to  turn  upon  what  is  made  of  'difference,'  'possibility,'  etc.     If  these  be 
genuine  relations,  then  relation  is  universal ;   otherwise  not.     I  leave  the  question 
open,  to  avoid  needless  complication  of  the  issue. 
I 


mind  when  he  uses  the  term  'independence.'  Thus  Mr.  Joachim 
is  correct  in  supposing  that  according  to  realism,  'the  facts'  and 
'experiencing'  "are  or  may  be  related";  and  that  "the  relation 
when,  or  as,  it  obtains,  leaves  each  (factor)  precisely  what  it  was, 
viz.,  absolutely  in  itself  and  independent."  l  In  other  words,  it  is 
fundamentally  characteristic  of  neo-realism  to  distinguish  'rela- 
tion' and  'dependence.'  Otherwise,  as  the  critics  of  realism  have 
taken  pains  to  point  out,  the  independence  theory  would  be  equiva- 
lent to  agnosticism.  For  if  the  real  were  necessarily  out  of  rela- 
tion to  knowledge,  then  it  is  obvious  that,  as  real,  things  could  not 
be  in  the  relation  of  being  known.  Thus  it  behooves  realism  to 
define  a  species  of  relation  in  which  the  terms,  although  related,  are 
nevertheless  independent ;  or  to  show  that  dependence  is  something 
over  and  above  bare  relation. 

Although  realizing  that  Professor  McGilvary  is  in  substantial 
agreement  with  the  view  here  set  forth,  I  cannot  but  feel  that  his 
presentation  of  the  matter  is  too  easily  open  to  misunderstanding. 
"By  an  'independent'  object,"  he  says,  "the  realist  means  an 
object  that  exists  when  there  is  no  awareness  of  it."  Now  this 
must  mean  one  of  two  things.  It  may  mean  that  an  object  is 
independent  in  so  far  as  there  is  no  awareness  of  it.  But  in  this 
case  the  only  independent  things  are  the  unknown  things;  and 
one  must  with  Kant  divide  the  world  into  known  phenomena  and 
unknown  reals.  Or  it  may  mean  that  an  object  is  independent  in 
so  far  as  it  does  not  require  awareness  in  order  to  exist.  But  this 
is  the  same  as  to  say  that  an  independent  object  is  independent  of 
awareness ;  and  we  still  require  a  definition  of  independence.  We 
require,  in  short,  a  definition  of  independence  that  shall  not  either 
affirm  or  deny  the  fact  of  awareness.  "If,"  Professor  McGilvary 
continues,  "he  (the  realist)  ever  speaks  of  the  qualities  of  which  he 
is  aware  as  now  being  independent  of  awareness,  he  begs  to  be 
understood  as  meaning  by  'independent'  something  different  from 
what  he  means  by  independence  when  he  speaks  of  the  independ- 

1  Op.  tit.,  41. 


MEANING  OF  INDEPENDENCE  IN  NEO-REALISM     115 

cnce  of  the  qualities  of  which  he  is  not  aware.1  This  is  consistent 
with  Professor  McGilvary's  own  definition  of  independence.  But 
it  is  clear  to  me  that  what  is  required  for  an  empirical  realism  is  a 
sense  of  the  term  'independence'  that  shall  hold  of  objects  equally 
whether  there  be  awareness  of  them  or  not.  And  such  a  sense  must 
be  defined  without  including  in  the  definition  either  the  presence 
or  the  absence  of  awareness. 

Thus  Professor  Dewey  is  equally  mistaken  in  supposing  that 
realism  assumes  "the  ubiquity  of  the  knowledge  relation."2  Real- 
ism does  not  argue  from  the  'ego-centric  predicament/  i.e.  from 
the  bare  presence  of  the  knowledge-relation  in  all  cases  of  knowl- 
edge. On  the  contrary,  it  denies  the  possibility  of  arguing  from  that 
predicament  at  all.3  Its  use  of  the  predicament  is  polemical  and 
negative  merely.  It  convicts  idealism  of  so  arguing,  but  does  not 
propose  to  fall  itself  into  the  same  error.  Realism  defines  depend- 
ence as  a  peculiar  kind  of  relation;  so  that  the  mere  presence  of 
knowledge  as  a  relation  cannot  be  used  to  argue  dependence.  Is 
being  known  a  relation  of  dependence  or  not?  If  it  is,  then  all 
known  things  are  dependent;  if  it  is  not,  then  things  are  inde- 
pendent of  being  known,  whether  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  be  known  or 
unknown. 

2.  Independence  is  not  priority.  —  That  which  includes,  implies, 
causes,  or  explains  is  not  independent  of  what  is  included,  implied, 
caused,  or  explained.  That  which  is  inferred  or  determined  is  not 
more  dependent  than  its  premises  or  ground.  In  other  words,  the 
difference  between  logical  activity  and  passivity,  or  the  difference 
of  logical  direction,  is  not  the  same  as  the  difference  between  inde- 
pendence and  dependence.  Such  a  notion  of  independence  appears 
in  all  varieties  of  'absolutism.'  The  'ideal  of  reason,'  converted  in 
more  recent  times  into  an  'ideal  experience,'  'a  perfect  coherence/ 

1  E.  B.  McGilvary,  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1907,  4,  686. 

*  Brief  Studies  in  Realism,  II,  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1911,  8,  554,  and 
passim. 

3  Cf.  my  article,  The  Ego-centric  Predicament,  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1910, 
7,  5-14. 


116      A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

an  'absolutely  organized  experience/  or  into  the  'mandate'  (Sol- 
len)  binding  on  the  act  of  judgment,  is  conceived  as  the  final  'pre- 
supposition' of  thought.1  It  is  regarded  as  independent  of  all 
particular  acts  of  thought  in  the  sense  that  while  the  latter  may  be 
psychologically  antecedent,  the  former  is  logically  antecedent. 
The  validity  of  the  ideal  is  not  derived  from  particular  acts  of 
thought,  but  constitutes  the  standard  by  which  the  validity  of  the 
latter  is  determined.  Truth  and  being  attach  primarily  to  the 
completed  whole  of  knowledge,  and  to  the  parts  or  approximations 
only  in  so  far  as  these  participate  in  the  whole. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  urge  what  has  been  said  concerning  the 
questionable  character  of  this  alleged  dependence  of  part  on  whole, 
or  of  the  implied  on  the  implier.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  urge  the 
objection  that  this  'ideal  of  reason'  upon  which  the  whole  argu- 
ment turns  is  a  meaningless  combination  of  words.2  For  the  ques- 
tion immediately  at  issue  would,  I  think,  be  promptly  conceded  by 
the  idealist.  The  ideal  whole  may  be  prior  to  its  parts,  but  these 
are  none  the  less  indispensable  to  it.  The  absolutely  organized 
experience  is  made  up  of  the  finite  experiences  which  it  organizes; 
the  incoherences  are  taken  over  into  the  completely  coherent  whole ; 
the  mandatory  ideal  is  an  idealization  of  the  judgments  which  pre- 
suppose it.  The  solidarity  of  the  whole  requires  that  every  least 
part  shall  be  and  contribute  precisely  what  it  is.  So  that  even 
were  it  admitted  that  'priority'  is  a  sort  of  independence,  the 
ideal  whole  would  not  in  the  least  on  that  account  escape  depend- 
ence on  its  parts. 

It  is  virtually  the  contention  of  idealism  that  the  two  notions 
of  independence  just  formulated  are  exhaustive  of  all  the  possibili- 
ties. Either  reality  is  independent  of  thought  hi  the  sense  of  being 
wholly  out  of  relation  to  it,  or  in  the  sense  of  giving  the  law  to  it. 
Thus  idealism  may  be  said  to  confront  realism  with  a  dilemma : 
"Either  your  reality  is" unknowable,  and  so  utterly  negligible,  or  it 
is  the  ideal  of  knowledge  itself,  and  so  the  very  quintessence  of 

1  Cf.  Joachim,  op.  cit.;  Royce,  op.  cit. ;  Rickert,  H.,  Der  Gegenstand  der  Erkenntnis. 
» Cf.  the  author's  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  Ch.  VIII,  §§  7,  8. 


MEANING  OF  INDEPENDENCE  IN  NEO-REALISM     117 

thought."  It  is  plain  that  the  whole  case  for  realism  must  rest  on 
the  assertion  of  a  third  alternative.  It  must  be  possible  to  regard 
reality  as  sustaining,  or  as  being  capable  of  sustaining,  the  relation 
which  constitutes  knowledge,  while  at  the  same  time  sustaining 
that  relation  only  accidentally.  And  if  reality  be  "the  ideal  of 
thought,"  as  in  a  sense  it  undoubtedly  is,  then  it  must  on  realistic 
grounds  be  possible  to  regard  this  as  a  role  which  reality  assumes 
without  prejudice  to  its  independence.  It  will  not  be  sufficient  to 
assert  that  reality  is  'prior'  to  finite  thought  in  the  sense  that  finite 
thought  is  regulated  or  determined  by  it;  it  must  be  further  as- 
serted that  this  very  regulation  or  determination  is  gratuitous,  so 
far  as  reality  is  concerned.  It  must  be  shown  that  though  reality 
be  related  to  thought  as  its  ideal,  or  presupposition,  that  relation  is 
of  the  non-dependent  type.  It  is  clear,  in  short,  that  another  mean- 
ing of  independence  is  called  into  play,  and  that  this  third  meaning 
is  crucial. 

3.  Independence  is  the  total  absence  of  dependence  in  the  senses 
enumerated  above.  —  In  order  to  prove  the  dependence  of  a  on  6 
it  is  necessary  to  show  that  a  contains  6 ;  or  that  a  is  the  cause 
or  effect  of  6  in  a  system  which  exclusively  determines  a ;  or  that 
a  implies  b ;  or  that  a  is  implied  exclusively  by  6.  To  exhibit  any 
relation  of  a  to  6  other  than  these  is  beside  the  point.  Whether 
a  and  b  be  otherwise  related,  or  not,  does  not  affect  the  independ- 
ence of  a.  And  if  it  can  be  shown  that  a  and  b  are  related,  and  yet 
not  dependent  in  any  of  these  senses,  the  relation  in  question  is  by 
definition  a  non-dependent  relation. 

This  is  a  suitable  occasion  on  which  to  eliminate  three  current 
misconceptions. 

A.  In  the  first  place,  the  realist  does  not  propose  to  define  reality 
in  terms  of  its  independence.1  This  would  be  a  palpable  and 
clumsy  self-contradiction.  If  a  is  independent  of  6,  then  a  must 
be  definable,  if  at  all,  in  terms  other  than  b.  Independence  itself 
is  not  a  relation,  but  the  absence  of  a  certain  type  of  relation. 
Hence  independence  itself  does  not  define  anything.  If  a  be  re- 

1  Cf.  Royce,  op.  tit.,  66,  92,  93,  108. 


118      A  REALISTIC  THEORY   OF   INDEPENDENCE 

lated  to  b,  and  yet  independent,  this  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  a 
can  be  defined  without  reference  to  this  relation. 

B.  In  the  second  place,  realism  does  not  assert  that  "everything 
that  is  true  of"  a,  is  independent  of  b.1    For  a's  independence  of  6 
is  true  of  a;    and  this  judgment  evidently  depends  on  b.    The 
independence  of  a  as  respects  6  expressly  means  that  the  6-things 
that  may  or  may  not  be  true  of  a  are  in  any  case  not  necessary  to  a. 
The  doctrine  turns  entirely  on  the  distinction  between  what  a 
depends  on,  and  what  is  merely  true  of  it. 

C.  Thirdly,  realism  does  not  deny  that  when  a  enters  into  a 
relation,  such  as  knowledge,  of  which  it  is  independent,  a  now 
acquires  that  relation,  and  is  accordingly  different  by  so  much; 
but  denies  only  that  this  added  relation  is  necessary  to  a  as  already 
constituted.     Thus  when  a  is  known,  it  is  a  itself,  as  constituted 
without  knowledge,   that  is   independent  of  that  circumstance. 
The  new  complex  known-a  is  of  course  dependent  on  knowledge 
as  one  of  its  parts. 

IV 

A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE  FORMULATED  IN  GENERAL 

TERMS 

WE  are  now  in  a  position  to  advance  the  notion  of  independence 
as  a  theory :  in  other  words,  to  set  forth  its  reasons  and  its  applica- 
tions. 

1.  All  simple  entities  are  mutually  independent.  —  Simple  enti- 
ties cannot  be  dependent2  in  the  whole-part  sense  because  as  simple 
they  cannot  be  wholes  composed  of  parts.  Simple  entities  cannot 
be  causally  related  because  they  cannot  be  values  of  variables, 
since  this  again  would  belie  their  simplicity.  And  it  is  acknowl- 
edged by  all  logicians  that  simple  entities  can  neither  imply  nor 
be  implied,  these  being  relations  confined  to  propositions  or  com- 
binations of  propositions.3 

1  Royce,  op.  cit.,  117. 

2  The  term   '  dependence '  will  henceforth  be  employed  in  the  sense  defined 
above,  113.  s  Cf .  Russell,  B.,  Principles  of  Mathematics,  14,  15. 


INDEPENDENCE  FORMULATED  119 

2.  Simple  entities  are  independent  of  the  complexes  of  which  they 
are  members.  —  It  is  evident  that  a  complex  cannot  be  a  part  of  one 
of  its  own  components.     Nor  can  a  simple  constituent  sustain 
relations  of  either  causation  or  implication  with  its  including  com- 
plex. 

3.  Complexes  are  mutually  independent  as  respects  their  simple 
constituents.  —  This  follows  from  the  previous  assertion.     If  the 
constituents  into  which  a  complex  may  be  analyzed  do  not  depend 
on  that  complex,  the  complex  itself  may  be  destroyed  without 
affecting  the  constituents.     Therefore  two  complexes  having  some 
constituents  in  common  are  not  made  interdependent  by  that  fact. 
Consider  the  argument  advanced  by  Professor  Royce.     He  sup- 
poses two  independent  entities  to  have  some  quality  in  common, 
such  as  'redness'  or  'roundness.'     One  of  the  beings  is  then  sup- 
posed to  be  destroyed;   while  the  other,  being  independent,  sur- 
vives.    But  if  the  first  being  is  destroyed,  'redness'  must  go  with 
it;    hence  the   surviving  being  cannot  possess  'redness/   which 
contradicts  the  original  supposition.     "It  follows,"  he  concludes, 
"that  the  many  entities  of  the  realistic  world  have  no  features  in 
common."  x     But  the  argument  turns  entirely  upon  the  assump- 
tion that  when  an  entity  is  destroyed  its  qualities  are  destroyed 
likewise,  or  that  the  simple  constituents  of  a  complex  are  de- 
pendent on  the  complex ;  and  this  assumption,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
false. 

4.  Complexes  as  wholes  are  dependent  on  their  simple  constituents. 
—  The  cherry  is  dependent  on  'redness/  'roundness/  etc.     This 
is  no  more  than  a  restatement  of  one  of  our  definitions  of  depend- 
ence.    But  when  taken  together  with  the  previous  assertion  it 
reveals  the  important  fact  that  dependence  is  not  always  recipro- 
cal.    While  a  complex  depends  on  the  terms  into  which  it  may  be 
analyzed,  these  are  none  the  less  independent  of  the  complex. 

5.  A  first  complex  is  dependent  on  a  second  complex  when  the 
second  complex  is  a  part  of  the  first.  —  This  also  is  simply  the  re- 
statement of  the  whole-part  type  of  dependence.     But  it  is  im- 

i  Op.  cit.,  130,  131 ;  cf.  114. 


120      A  REALISTIC   THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

portant  to  observe  that  here  again  dependence  is  not  reciprocal. 
A  complex  part  is  not  dependent  on  its  including  whole  simply  by 
virtue  of  its  participation  therein ;  but  only  in  so  far  as  it  stands 
in  relations  of  dependence  with  the  other  parts.  The  members 
of  a  collection  are  not  dependent  on  the  collection,  but  may  be 
dependent  by  causation  or  implication  on  other  members  of  the 
collection.  The  ordinary  supposition  to  the  contrary  is  due  to  a 
confusion  that  virtually  begs  the  question.  Thus  we  may  say 
that  the  members  of  the  planetary  system  depend  on  the  whole 
system  for  their  being  members-of-the-planetary-system.  But 
this  is  true  only  in  the  trivial  and  redundant  sense.  It  does  not 
prove  that  Jupiter,  e.g.,  is  dependent  on  the  collective  planetary 
system,  which  is  the  very  question  at  issue.  Jupiter  is  dependent, 
however,  not  on  the  planetary  system  as  a  whole,  but  on  the  sun, 
Saturn,  etc.,  as  causes  and  effects,  or  on  the  law  of  gravitation  as  a 
premise  of  implication. 

It  follows  that  when  two  complexes  are  interdependent,  this 
does  not  involve  the  interdependence  of  their  parts.  Since  a  does 
not  depend  on  abc,  a  is  not  necessarily  dependent  on  r,  even  when 
abc  is  dependent  on  rst. 

6.  A  first  complex  is  dependent  on  a  second  complex  when  the  first 
is  either  cause  or  effect  of  the  second  within  a  system  which  exclusively 
determines  the  first.  —  Thus  Jupiter  is  dependent  on  the  sun  inas- 
much as  its  velocity  is  a  function  of  the  sun's  mass  according  to  a 
law  which  alone  accounts  for  that  velocity.  If  the  velocity  of  Jupi- 
ter were  deducible  from  the  plan  of  God  regardless  of  the  mass  of 
the  sun,  then  despite  its  conformity  to  the  law  of  gravitation  it 
would  be  independent  of  the  sun.  Or,  if  one  preferred,  one  might 
say  that  it  would  then  be  dependent  on  the  sun  within  the  planetary 
system  of  gravitation;  it  being  understood  that  it  would  be  inde- 
pendent of  that  system  by  virtue  of  its  place  in  the  plan  of  God. 
Similarly,  the  mass  of  Jupiter  cannot  be  said  to  be  dependent  on 
the  mass  of  the  sun,  inasmuch  as  it  is  definable  in  terms  of  its  own 
satellites.  Or  it  could  be  said  to  have  a  conditional  dependence 
on  the  sun's  mass,  relative  to  its  gravitational  relations  with  the  sun. 


INDEPENDENCE  FORMULATED  121 

But  even  supposing  the  velocity  of  Jupiter  to  be  determinable 
only  in  the  planetary  gravitational  system,  it  is  important  to  re- 
mark that  it  is  the  velocity  of  Jupiter,  or  some  such  gravitational 
property,  that  is  then  dependent.  If  one  wishes  to  say  loosely 
that  "Jupiter  is  dependent,"  then  one  must  recognize  that  this  is 
so  only  in  so  far  as  Jupiter  is  dependent  on  its  gravitational  prop- 
erties as  its  parts.  Dependence  by  causation  is  reciprocal;  but 
where  it  is  complicated  with  the  whole-part  relation  the  resulting 
dependence  is  not  necessarily  reciprocal.  Thus  while  Jupiter  as  a 
whole  is  dependent  on  the  motion  of  the  sun  by  virtue  of  compris- 
ing gravitational  properties  that  are  causally  dependent  thereon, 
it  does  not  follow  that  the  motion  of  the  sun  is  dependent  on 
Jupiter  as  a  whole,  although  it  is  dependent  on  its  gravitational 
properties.  Being  independent,  let  us  say,  of  the  apparent  color 
of  Jupiter  when  seen  from  the  earth,  it  is  then  independent  of  the 
whole  Jupiter  when  this  is  taken  to  comprise  that  color. 

7.  A  first  complex  is  dependent  on  a  second  complex  when  the  first 
implies  the  second.  —  Thus  the  premises  of  a  syllogism  depend  on 
the  conclusion,  and  the  law  of  a  mathematical  or  physical  system 
together  with  the  values  required  for  the  solution  of  the  equation, 
depend  on  the  value  of  the  unknown  quantity.     It  is  important  to 
remark  that  it  is  that  which  implies  that  is  dependent,  and  not  its 
components  taken  severally.     The  major  premise  of  a  syllogism 
does  not  depend  on  the  conclusion,  nor  the  law  on  a  particular 
cause  or  effect ;  for  the  single  premise,  or  the  bare  law,  do  not  of 
themselves  imply.     So  that  the  falsity  of  the  conclusion  does  not 
necessarily  disprove  the  major  premise  but  only  the  combination 
of  premises ;  nor  does  the  non-occurrence  of  an  effect  disprove  the 
law,  but  only  the  occurrence  of  the  cause  under  the  law. 

8.  A  first  complex  is  dependent  on  a  second  complex  when  the  first 
is  implied  by  the  second,  and  is  not  otherwise  implied.  —  If  a  conclu- 
sion follows  from  several  alternative  pairs  of  premises  it  cannot 
be  said  to  be  dependent  on  any  one  pair.     But  if  a  certain  pair  of 
premises  constitute  its  sole  determination,  then  it  belongs  to  them, 
and  is  dependent  on  them.     Here,  again,  dependence  is  not  neces- 


122      A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF   INDEPENDENCE 

sarily  reciprocal.  In  other  words,  that  which  is  implied  may  be 
independent  of  the  implier,  despite  the  fact  that  the  implier  is  de- 
pendent on  the  implied. 

We  have  thus  discovered  several  instances  of  non-reciprocal  de- 
pendence; and  in  so  doing  have  removed  a  dialectical  objection 
that  has  been  urged  against  realism  with  some  force.  If  'objects' 
be  independent  of  the  'ideas/  it  does  not  follow  from  the  formal 
notion  of  independence  that  'ideas'  must  be  independent  of  their 
'objects.' 1  For  the  relation  in  question  may  belong  to  any  one  of 
the  several  types  of  non-reciprocal  dependence  described  above  in 
(2),  (4),  (5),  (6),  and  (8). 

9.  A  first  complex  is  independent  of  a  second  complex  whenever 
the  first  is  not  dependent  on  the  second  in  any  of  the  senses  enumerated 
above,  regardless  of  their  being  otherwise  related. 

In  other  words,  it  is  not  necessary  to  present  a  list  of  non-depend- 
ent relations.  Independence  is  not  a  question  of  relation  or  non- 
relation,  but  of  the  presence  or  absence  in  any  given  case  of  a  cer- 
tain type  of  relationship.  Entities  are  independent  unless  they  are 
proved  dependent.  Their  bare  relation  is  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases  discovered  before  any  dependence  is  proved ;  and  in  in- 
numerable instances  no  such  dependence  is  proved  at  all.  Things 
are  '  together '  in  consciousness,  or  in  space,  they  '  succeed '  one  an- 
other in  time,  they  are  'different,'  'more,'  'less,'  whether  or  not 
they  are  whole  and  part,  cause  and  effect,  or  implier  and  implied. 
These  simpler  relations  are  entirely  intelligible ;  and  must  be  so 
regarded  even  by  the  most  extreme  advocates  of  interdependence. 
For  they  enter  into  all  cases  of  dependence.  Such  relations  hold, 
for  example,  of  the  several  postulates,  constants,  values,  etc.,  of  a 
deductive  system,  and  of  the  parts  of  an  organic  unity.  It  is  im- 
possible to  reduce  relation  to  dependence,  to  reduce  temporal  suc- 

1  Cf.  Royce,  op.  cit.,  119,  69.  Realists  themselves  have  cited  consciousness 
as  a  case  of  non-reciprocal  dependence,  but  without,  so  far  as  I  know,  discussing 
the  matter  in  detail.  Cf.  Russell,  B.,  Meinong's  Theory  of  Complexes  and 
Assumptions,  Mind.  N.  S.  (1904),  13,  515. 


INDEPENDENCE  FORMULATED  123 

cession  to  physical  causation,  for  example ;  because  the  notion  of 
physical  causation  is  more  complex  and  includes  the  notion  of 
temporal  succession.  A  complex  notion  can  be  no  clearer  than 
the  simpler  notions  that  enter  into  it.  Dependence  is  a  complex 
notion  that  is  intelligible  only  provided  the  simpler  notion  of  rela- 
tion is  intelligible.  If  bare  relation  be  a  "miracle,"  x  then  depend- 
ence is  a  compound  miracle. 

There  can  be  no  logical  presumption  in  favor  of  dependence. 
Because  things  once  thought  independent  are  afterwards  dis- 
covered to  be  dependent,  we  may  distrust  our  present  judgments 
of  independence ;  but  if  so  we  are  governed  by  psychological  and 
not  by  logical  motives.  There  is  as  much  ground  for  the  plain 
man's  feeling  of  wonder  at  the  laws  of  nature,  as  for  the  idealist's 
grieved  surprise  when  his  attention  is  invited  to  an  external  rela- 
tion. In  other  words,  there  is  no  logical  ground  for  either  emotion. 
If  one  is  used  to  employing  the  method  of  inference,  one  is  shocked 
by  unmitigated  facts ;  if  one  is  used  to  aggregates,  sequences,  and 
contrasts,  one  is  startled  to  discover  identities  and  widely  ramify- 
ing necessities.  But  there  is  no  logic  that  has  ever  been  con- 
ceived that  prefers  the  one  to  the  other.  The  assumption  of 
dependence  where  it  is  not  found  is  not  only  a  dogma;  it  is  a 
superstition  that  none'  of  its  devotees  have  ever  subjected  to  a 
searching  examination.  Had  they  done  so,  they  would  have 
been  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  a  pure,  or  entire,  dependence,  is 
a  meaningless  combination  of  words. 

The  question  of  independence,  then,  is  an  empirical  question 
that  must  be  raised  over  again  for  every  case  under  dispute. 
Given  an  entity  a,  and  a  second  entity  6,  one  must  inquire  whether 
6  is  a  part  of  a,  or  whether  a  implies  6,  or  whether  a  is  exclusively 
determined  by  a  system  in  which  it  is  cause,  effect,  or  implication 
of  6.  An  affirmative  answer  to  any  of  these  questions  asserts  the 
dependence  of  a  on  6.  A  negative  answer  to  all  of  these  questions 
is  equivalent  to  the  assertion  of  the  independence  of  a  on  6.  And 

1  Cf.  Joachim,  op.  cit.,  44,  49. 


124      A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

if  such  a  negative  answer  is  reached,  then  such  relations  as  a 
does  sustain  to  6  cannot  prejudice  its  independence. 

10.  A  first  entity  may  acquire  dependence  on  a  second  entity.  — 
This  statement  must  be  carefully  guarded,  and  is  true  only  in  a 
very  limited  sense. 

A.  In  the  first  place,  a  simple  entity,  a,  may  enter  into  a  com- 
plex which  is  dependent  on  a  second  complex  containing  a  simple 
entity  6,  of  which  a  was  formerly  independent.     Thus  a  may 
enter  the  complex  aim  which  is  the  cause  of  brs;    as  when  the 
round  sun  is  the  cause  of  the  red  sunset,  'roundness'  having  been 
independent  of  'redness.'     But,  as  we  have  seen  above  (§  3)  the 
dependence  of  complexes  does  not  involve  the  dependence  of  their 
simple   components.     These   are   as   independent   as   they  were 
before,  despite  their  figuring  in  an  instance  of  dependence.     This 
conclusion  is  evident  unless  a  is  identified  with  aim,  and  6  with 
brs,  which  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

B.  In  the  second  place,  a  complex  may  become  dependent  on  a 
second  complex  of  which  it  was  formerly  independent.     Thus  a 
body  may  move  into  a  new  field  of  force  and  so  acquire  a  causal 
dependence  de  novo.     This  affords  a  proper  instance  of  acquired 
dependence,  provided  it  be  admitted  that  the  body  in  question 
has  changed.     The  motions  of  a  body  a  up  to  a  certain  time  were 
dependent  on  certain  bodies  b,  c,  etc.,  within  the  field  of  force  M ; 
and  independent  of  certain  other  bodies,  r,  s,  etc.,  lying  in  a 
second  field  of  force  N.    After  that  time  a  is  dependent  on  r,  s, 
etc.     In  other  words,  a  has  changed  from  a1,  which  is  independent, 
to  a2  which  is  dependent  on  r,  s,  etc.      But  it  may  be  objected 
that  since  a1  and  a2  are  reciprocally  dependent,  therefore  a1  is  in- 
directly dependent  on  r,  s,  etc.,  and  a2  on  6,  c,  etc.     In  other 
words,  the  body's  moving  into  the  field  of  force  N  is  a  function  of 
its  determination  by  the  field  of  force  M;   and  vice  versa.     We 
must  not,  however,  hastily  conclude  that  two  things  dependent  on 
the  same  thing  are  dependent  on  each  other.     For  as  we  have 
already  seen,  causal  determination  in  order  to  involve  depend- 
ence must  be  exclusive.    And  a  at  the  moment  of  passing  into 


INDEPENDENCE  FORMULATED  125 

the  second  field  of  force  is  determined  by  both;  i.e.  its  posi- 
tion, velocity,  etc.,  could  be  accounted  for  in  terms  of  either 
system.  Hence  if  regarded  as  member  of  one,  it  is  independent 
of  the  other.  If,  then,  we  indicate  by  a1  the  body  a  so  far 
as  wholly  determined  by  system  M,  and  by  a2  the  body 
so  far  as  determined  by  system  N,  we  may  say  that  a1  is  inde- 
pendent of  r,  s,  etc.,  the  members  of  system  N;  and  that  a,  in 
changing  from  a1  to  a2,  becomes  dependent. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  that  an  entity  can  acquire  dependence 
only  when  we  include  in  our  definition  of  the  entity  in  question, 
all  that  ever  happens,  or  may  possibly  happen,  to  it.  This  is 
what  Professor  Royce,  e.g.,  expressly  does.  "The  man  in  China 
who  may  become  my  enemy  or  my  neighbor,"  he  says,  "is  already 
such  that  certain  changes  in  him,  if  they  occurred,  would  not  be 
indifferent  to  me.  This  possibility  already  makes  part  of  his 
being."  1  Now  the  possibility  in  question  can  be  construed  in 
either  one  of  two  ways.  In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  construed 
as  the  present  actual  nature  of  the  man  in  China.  But  this  is 
indifferent  to  me.  In  the  second  place,  it  may  be  construed  as 
the  man's  present  actual  nature  together  with  a  hypothetical  rela- 
tion to  me.  This,  it  is  true,  is  not  indifferent  to  me,  but  only 
because  I  have  included  the  difference  to  me  in  the  hypothesis.  It 
in  no  way  establishes  my  dependence  on  the  man  in  China  as 
presently  constituted.  And  even  if  we  grant  the  eventual  depend- 
ence, even  that  does  not  prejudice  our  present  independence. 
For  even  if  our  paths  do  cross,  the  point  of  intersection  is  deducible 
from  the  antecedents  in  my  own  life  history,  quite  regardless  of 
the  earlier  days  of  the  man  in  China.  I  should  reach  that  point 
anyway,  following  my  own  course,  so  that  my  susceptibility  to  his 
influence,  my  coming  within  his  range,  is  not  dependent  on  the 
earlier  stages  of  his  course. 

Furthermore,  it  is  pertinent  to  observe,  if  I  decline  to  define  any- 
thing short  of  all  that  does  or  may  happen  to  it,  I  must  not  only 

1  Op.  cit.,  126. 


126      A   REALISTIC   THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

deny  change  from  independence  to  dependence;  I  must  deny 
change  altogether.  For  as  fast  as  I  attribute  change  to  any  entity 
a,  that  change  is  taken  up  into  its  nature ;  and  a  thus  qualified  does 
not  change.  And  the  same  will  hold  true  of  difference,  or  of  any 
other  relation  or  predication  whatsoever.  But  it  is  needless  to 
press  this  objection.  It  is  sufficient  for  the  purpose  of  a  realistic 
philosophy  to  say  that  if  there  can  be  change  at  all,  there  can  be 
change  from  a  state  of  independence  to  one  of  dependence. 


A   REALISTIC   THEORY   OF   INDEPENDENCE   APPLIED   TO   THE    CASE 
OF    KNOWLEDGE 

1.  When  an  entity  is  known  or  otherwise  experienced  it  is  related 
to  a  complex.  —  It  is  impossible  to  furnish  a  justification  of  this 
assertion  without  undertaking  a  complete  account  of  the  nature  of 
consciousness.     But  it  is  desirable  so  to  explain  it  as  to  reduce 
opposition  to  a  minimum.     This  assertion  would  contradict  the 
supposition  that  in  consciousness  there  is  no  difference  between 
subject  and  object,  or  between  consciousness  as  agent  and  conscious- 
ness as  content.     It  would  also  contradict  the  supposition  that  the 
subject  or  agent  in  consciousness  is  a  simple  'activity'  or  'sub- 
stance.'    On  the  other  hand,  it  would  agree  with  a  theory  which 
regarded  the  subject  of  consciousness  as  a  context  into  which  the 
object  is  brought  by  virtue  of  a  peculiar  relation ;  or  with  a  theory 
that  regarded  the  subject  as  an  'apperceiving  mass/  or  background 
of  feeling,  or  organized  self-consciousness,  to  which  the  object 
known  or  experienced  is  assimilated;  or,  finally,  it  would  agree 
with  the  view  that  the  subject  in  consciousness  is  the  living  and 
responding  organism.1 

2.  Simple  entities  are  not  dependent  on  consciousness.  —  There  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  no  sense  in  which  simple  entities  can  be  said  to  be 
dependent  at  all.     It  follows  that  in  so  far  as  the  knowledge  of  such 

1  Cf.  my  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  Ch.  XII. 


THE   CASE  OF  KNOWLEDGE  127 

entities  is  possible,  they  must  be  regarded  as  independent  of  knowl- 
edge. But  the  knowledge  of  such  entities  is  involved  in  the  method 
of  analysis.  If  one  is  to  recognize  a  complex  as  such,  one  must  be 
able  to  ascertain  its  simple  components ;  for  a  complex  depends  on 
such  simple  components  both  for  its  nature  and  its  meaning. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  assert  that  simple  entities  can  ever  stand 
alone  in  knowledge,  that  they  can  be  known  without  knowing  some- 
thing else  at  the  same  time.  It  may  well  be  that  they  must  be 
known  together  with  some  context  or  schematism.  There  may  be 
a  minimum  cognosdble,  which  is  a  complex.  But  this  does  not 
affect  the  question  whether  simple  entities  can  be  known.  That 
such  is  the  case  is  the  universal  testimony  of  analysis.  Empiri- 
cism claims  to  know  simple  'sensory'  qualities,  or  'impressions.' 
Rationalism  claims  to  know  logical  ' indefinables '  or  'categories.' 
And  we  must  conclude  that  in  so  far  as  such  elements  are  known 
they  furnish  instances  of  independence. 

Nor,  indeed,  can  a  philosophy  which  rejects  analysis  avoid  the 
same  conclusion.  Such  a  philosophy  merely  differs  from  other 
philosophies  in  respect  of  what  it  holds  to  be  simple.  Whereas 
the  devotees  of  analysis  regard  'self,'  'activity,'  'substance,'  etc., 
as  complexes,  this  philosophy  declares  them  to  be  indivisible.  We 
may  fairly  inquire,  then,  for  the  sense  in  which  such  indivisibles 
are  to  be  regarded  as  dependent.  They  cannot  be  wholes  depend- 
ent on  parts;  they  cannot  cause  or  be  caused  in  the  scientific 
sense ;  they  can  neither  imply  nor  be  implied.  It  would,  then,  be 
meaningless  to  speak  of  them  as  dependent.  If  they  are  none  the 
less  denied  independence  of  knowledge,  then  they  must  be  regarded 
as  identical  with  knowledge.  No  realist  or  other  sane  person  would, 
of  course,  propose  to  regard  a  thing  as  independent  of  itself.  But 
one  who  denies  realism  on  such  grounds  must  be  prepared  to  deny 
the  difference  between  object  and  subject  of  knowledge,  and  iden- 
tify being  altogether  with  the  act  of  knowing.  Such  a  view  does 
not  require  attention  until  some  serious  effort  has  been  made  to 
answer  the  objections  that  have  long  since  been  urged  against  it. 

There  is  an  interesting  corollary  to  the  conclusion  we  have  al- 


128      A  REALISTIC   THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

ready  reached.  If  simples  are  independent,  it  follows  that  knowl- 
edge escapes  subjectivity  in  proportion  as  it  carries  analysis 
through  to  the  end.  The  ultimate  terms  of  experience  are  at  any 
rate  independent,  whatever  may  turn  out  to  be  the  case  with  cer- 
tain complexes  of  these  terms.  If  the  knower  desires  to  eliminate 
the  personal  equation  and  seize  on  thing-in-themselves,  his  safest 
course  is  to  sift  experience  to  its  elements  and  thus  obtain  a  sure 
footing  in  the  independent  world.  Such  elements,  whether  sen- 
sory qualities  or  logical  indefinables,  will  afford  him  a  nucleus  of 
independence  to  which  he  may  add  such  complexes  as  will  satisfy 
his  criterion. 

The  present  is  a  suitable  occasion  on  which  to  comment  on  a 
sentiment  with  which  such  a  view  as  the  above  has  had  to  contend. 
Thomas  Reid  referred  to  Hume's  abolition  of  substance  as  a  turn- 
ing of  the  elements  of  experience  "out  of  house  and  home  .  .  . 
without  friend  or  connection,  without  a  rag  to  cover  their  naked- 
ness." 1  'Tender-minded'  idealists  have  been  moved  by  the  same 
sentiment  —  a  sort  of  vicarious  nostalgia.  "'Greenness,'  'Har- 
mony,' 'Equality,'"  says  Mr.  Joachim,  "are  to  remain  eternally 
and  unalterably  themselves,  whether  they  are  also  experienced  or 
not.  They  are  'the  facts,'  and  they  are  there  independently  and  in 
themselves.  But  what  is  their  being  there?"2  If  this  argument 
has  any  weight,  it  is  derived  from  a  careless  use  of  pronouns.  The 
hard-hearted  realist  is  quite  ready  to  conclude  that  the  simple 
elements  are  nowhere.  They  may  enter  into  this  or  that  group, 
but  they  do  not  belong  to  it ;  they  have  no  home.  The  benevolent 
idealist,  on  the  other  hand,  offers  'experience'  or  'consciousness' 
as  a  public  refuge  for  all  ontological  outcasts.  It  is  the  same  senti- 
ment that  inspires  the  belief  that  there  must  be  some  last  defini- 
tive word  that  can  be  'said'  about  everything.  Reality  must  be 
defined ;  everything  must  be  brought  into  the  fold  lest  it  perish  in 
outer  darkness.  It  is  important  to  devise  something  that  can  be 
said  of  everything ;  and  you  can  say  of  everything  that  it  either  is 

1  Inquiry  into  the  Human  Mind  (1895),  103. 
1  Op.  tit..  40. 


THE   CASE   OF  KNOWLEDGE  129 

experienced  or  "would  be  present  to  a  sort  of  experience  which  we 
ideally  define."  l  So  idealism  derives  a  certain  support  from  the 
sentimental  demand  or  supposed  logical  need  of  some  envelop- 
ing characterization  of  things,  of  some  permanent  address  where 
things  may  be  always  reached  despite  their  wanderings.  With  the 
sentimental  demand  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves,  while  the  logi- 
cal need  is  the  very  question  at  issue.  Is  there  one  relation  of 
dependence  which  all  things  sustain,  or  not  ?  If  we  avoid  begging 
the  question,  and  are  critical  in  our  use  of  the  term  'dependence,' 
we  must,  I  believe,  conclude  as  above,  that  simple  elements,  at 
least,  depend  on  no  relation.  They  are  the  entities  'at  large/  and 
belong  exclusively  to  no  constituency. 

3.  Complexes  are  independent  of  knowledge  as  respects  their  simple 
constituents.  —  This  is  a  further  corollary  of  the  conclusion  reached 
above,  and  requires  to  be  stated  separately  only  in  the  interests  of 
clearness.     Whatever  conclusion  may  be  reached  as  to  the  de- 
pendence of  some  complexes  on  knowledge,  it  is  important  to  ob- 
serve that  this  can  in  no  way  prejudice  the  independence  of  the 
terms  into  which  they  can  be  analyzed.     If  we  should  conclude,  for 
example,  that  an  imaginary  complex  is  dependent  on  the  act  of 
imagination,  it  will  none  the  less  remain  true  that  such  elements  as 
'blue'  or  'identity,'  if  they  be  found  in  the  complex,  are  independent 
of  the  imagination.     In  other  words,  such  dependence  as  there  is 
must  attach  to  complexes  as  such,  and  cannot  involve  their  ulti- 
mate parts. 

4.  The  propositions  of  logic  2  and  mathematics  are  independent 
of  consciousness.  —  We  have  now  to  do  with  the  independence  of 
some  complexes,  assuming  that  each  type  of  complex  must  be  dealt 
with  on  its  merits.     We  have  only  to  select  an  instance  of  the  type 
and    apply  the    criteria    already    adopted.     Is   the    proposition, 
c2  =  a2+62— 2  ab  •  cos  y,  where  y  is  the  angle  of  a  triangle,  c  the  op- 
posite side,  and  a,  b  the  adjacent  sides,  dependent  on  the  rela- 
tion to  knowledge? 

1  Royce,  Conception  of  God,  30. 

2  Cf .  Marvin's  proof  that  knowledge  'presupposes'  logic,  above,  51  ff. 

K 


130    A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF   INDEPENDENCE 

In  the  first  place,  the  above  proposition  does  not  contain  the  rela- 
tion of  knowledge,  as  one  of  its  parts,  as  it  does  contain  'line/ 
'equality,'  'angle,'  etc.  The  relation  to  knowledge  is  not  to  be 
found  in  it  by  analysis.  This  is  true  of  all  the  notions  of  the  cog- 
nitive relation  mentioned  above  (I).1  There  is  no  relation  to  a 
background  of  feeling,  or  to  an  apperceiving  mass,  or  to  the  activ- 
ity of  a  self  or  responding  organism.  The  proposition  in  question 
is  therefore  not  dependent  on  knowledge  in  the  whole-part  sense. 
Nor  does  the  proposition  imply  any  of  these  relations.  The  only 
serious  question  is  whether  it  is  causally  determined,  or  implied  by 
such  a  relation.  But  as  we  have  seen,  this  is  not  itself  decisive  as 
respects  its  dependence  or  independence  (see  II,  6,  9).  Assuming 
for  the  moment  that  the  proposition  is  implied  by  knowledge,  and 
does  sustain  causal  relations  with  the  subject  of  knowledge;  we 
have  still  to  inquire  whether  it  is  thus  exclusively  determined. 
And  it  is  evident  that  this  question  must  be  answered  in  the  nega- 
tive. For  the  proposition  is  sufficiently  determined,  without  refer- 
ence to  knowledge,  by  the  logical  and  mathematical  systems  to 
which  it  belongs.  It  is  implied  by  a  set  of  postulates,  and  is  cause 
and  effect  in  relation  to  coordinate  theorems.  In  other  words, 
whether  it  be  determined  in  the  knowledge  relation  or  not,  it  is 
in  any  case  not  so  determined  exclusively.  This  may  be  expressed 
more  loosely  by  saying  that  even  were  it  not  necessary  for  cognitive 
reasons,  it  would  still  be  necessary  for  logical  and  mathematical 
reasons ;  so  that  its  cognitive  necessity  does  not  make  it  dependent. 

Thus  the  proposition  in  question,  since  it  is  not  dependent  on 
the  knowledge-relation  in  any  of  the  accepted  senses,  may  be  de- 
clared to  be  independent  thereof. 

5.  Physical  complexes  are  independent  of  consciousness.  —  The 
question  of  the  independence  of  physical  nature  introduces  no 
novelties.  The  mean  velocity  of  the  planet  Jupiter,  for  example, 

1  The  argument  would  be  more  empirical  and  decisive  were  I  to  employ  only 
what  I  regarded  as  the  true  conception  of  the  cognitive  relation.  But  as  such  a 
course  would  narrow  the  scope  of  our  conclusions  I  have  so  far  as  possible  left  the 
question  open. 


THE  CASE  OF  KNOWLEDGE  131 

neither  contains  nor  implies  the  cognitive  relation.  Assuming 
that  this  complex  is  implied  by  the  knowledge  of  it,  and  that  it 
sustains  causal  relations  with  the  subject  of  knowledge,  it  is  none 
the  less  independent  because  of  the  fact  that  it  is  completely  de- 
termined by  other  relations,  such  as  its  distance  from  the  mass  of 
the  sun.  It  can  be  deduced,  and  has,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  been  de- 
duced, from  the  celestial  gravitational  system  without  reference 
to  cognition. 

But  I  wish  in  this  connection  to  profit  by  the  powerful  support  of 
Mr.  L.  T.  Hobhouse.  In  his  "Theory  of  Knowledge,"  this  writer 
declares  that  the  "independent  existence"  of  A  is  a  "negative 
characteristic  of  A's  existence."  "It  says,"  he  continues,  "  'The 
A  which  I  now  apprehend  would  exist  now  and  would  still  be  A 
even  though  I  did  not  apprehend  it,  and  thus  (for  example)  it 
may  continue  to  exist,  though  I  should  cease  to  apprehend  it.  ... 
We  are  brought,  then,  at  once  to  the  question,  How  can  this 
independence  be  known  ?  And  the  answer  is,  that  it  depends  en- 
tirely on  our  success  in  discovering  universal  laws  in  the  occurrences 
of  phenomena.'"1  He  concludes,  in  other  words,  that  where  a 
physical  event  can  be  inferred  from  other  physical  events  by 
virtue  of  an  established  law,  the  inferred  event  can  be  regarded  as 
independent  of  other  conditions,  such  as  its  "apprehension,"  that 
are  not  required  for  its  inference. 

But  Mr.  Hobhouse  proposes  a  method  of  eliminating  appre- 
hension altogether.  Thus  if  B,  which  is  known  from  observation 
to  be  the  effect  of  A,  is  given  when  A  is  not  apprehended,  we  may 
infer  A  to  be  causally  operative  despite  its  not  being  apprehended.  In 
other  words,  we  may  now  conclude  that  although  when  the  law  was 
discovered  A  was  apprehended,  its  being  apprehended  was  not  a 
condition  of  its  effectiveness.  This  is,  perhaps,  the  most  convinc- 
ing way  of  presenting  the  argument.  Nevertheless,  it  is  impor- 
tant to  note  that  it  involves  a  dangerous  and  needless  concession 
to  the  opponent.  For  it  is  not  necessary  to  eliminate  a  condi- 

1  Hobhouse,  L.  T.,  Theory  of  Knowledge,  522  (italics  mine). 


132    A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

tion  in  order  to  disprove  its  necessity.  If  A  can  be  shown  to  be 
the  cause  of  B,  so  that  B  can  be  inferred  from  A  alone,  this  is  suffi- 
cient to  prove  the  independence  of  B  on  C,  whether  C  as  a  matter 
of  fact  happens  to  be  present  or  not.  B  is  dependent  only  on  those 
parts  of  the  context  which  exert  determination  upon  it,  or  re- 
quire to  be  employed  in  deducing  it.  Strictly  speaking,  it  is  never 
possible  to  obtain  an  empirical  instance  in  which  only  the  deter- 
mining conditions  are  present.  It  is  the  task  of  science  to  distin- 
guish within  a  total  manifold  those  factors  which  do  count  and 
those  which  do  not.  Thus  the  determination  of  the  length  of  a 
side  of  a  triangle  by  a  specific  ratio  of  the  magnitudes  of  the  opposite 
angle  and  its  adjacent  sides,  is  discovered  within  a  fuller  context, 
containing,  for  example,  the  absolute  magnitudes  of  the  adjacent 
sides.  And  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  discovered  that  the  ratio 
in  question  does  count,  it  is  found  that  the  absolute  magnitudes  do 
not  count.  Similarly,  when  Galileo  discovered  that  acceleration 
was  a  function  of  the  time  of  a  body's  fall,  he  discovered  that  it  was 
not  a  function  of  the  body's  weight  or  volume.  And  to  establish 
this  it  was  not  necessary  for  him  to  obtain  an  instance  of  a  body 
without  weight  or  volume ;  it  was  sufficient  for  him  to  show  that 
the  factors,  although  present,  did  not  enter  into  the  calculation. 

We  may  conclude,  therefore,  that  in  so  far  as  physical  phenomena 
are  deducible  from  physical  causes  without  reference  to  conscious- 
ness, they  are  independent  of  consciousness,  even  though  conscious- 
ness be  present ;  even,  indeed,  though  they  were  to  prove  deducible 
from  consciousness  also.  In  short,  if  physical  event  B  be  suffi- 
ciently determined  by  physical  cause  A,  B  is  independent  of  C, 
whatever  its  relation  thereto. 

6.  Logical,  mathematical,  and  physical  complexes  may  be  or  be- 
come objects  of  consciousness,  despite  their  independence.  —  Since 
dependence  has  not  been  identified  with  bare  relation,  the  assertion 
of  independence  does  not  involve  the  assertion  of  non-relation.  If 
knowledge  be  defined  merely  as  a  relation,  it  is,  therefore,  impos- 
sible to  argue  that  a  thing's  independence  forbids  its  being  known. 

The  question  cannot,  however,  profitably  be  discussed  in  terms 


THE  CASE  OF  KNOWLEDGE  133 

so  general  and  non-committal.  We  must  suppose  that  when  a 
thing  is  known,  it  enters  into  a  system  which  is  internally  deter- 
mined. If  we  are  not  to  regard  the  subject  of  knowledge  as  a 
simple  indefinable,  and  its  relation  to  its  objects  as  an  ultimate 
relation  of  which  no  more  can  be  asserted  than  its  disjunctive  or 
external  character,1  there  is  only  one  course  open  to  us.  We 
must  observe  the  knowledge  process  in  the  concrete,  and  take 
into  account  whatever  physiological,  psychological,  or  ethical  fac- 
tors it  appears  to  involve.  If  such  a  course  is  adopted,  we  can 
scarcely  deny  that  the  knowledge  process  has  laws  of  its  own; 

»and  that  the  parts  of  the  knowledge  process,  including  the  object, 
must  come  under  the  terms  of  the  law  and  be  determined  by  it. 
In  other  words,  if  a  thing  is  known,  it  must  submit  to  the  con- 
ditions which  knowledge  imposes. 

Thus  Mr.  Joachim  says,  paraphrasing  what  he  regards  as  the 
independence  theory:  "Greenness  is  an  entity  in  itself.  And 
though,  as  experienced,  it  is  related  to  a  sentient  consciousness, 
yet  even  in  that  relation  it  remains  in  itself  and  unaffected  by  the 
sentience."  He  then  very  fairly  inquires,  "Is  it  then  irrelevant 
to  the  nature  of  greenness  what  the  nature  of  the  sentience  may 
be?  Clearly,  the  sentience  to  which  greenness  can  be  related  is 
'vision/  not  'hearing.'  But  we  are  to  understand  that  this  re- 
striction is  not  based  on  the  nature  of  greenness  as  such,  but  is 
just  a  fact.  And  presumably  also  the  restriction  in  the  range  of 
the  sentience  —  the  restriction,  e.g.,  of  vision  to  color,  of  hearing 
to  sound,  of  this  type  of  vision  to  greenness,  etc.  —  is  just  a  fact, 
which  in  no  way  enters  into  the  nature  of  the  sentience."  2 

I  regard  Mr.  Joachim's  remarks  as  entirely  pertinent.  The 
relation  between  greenness  and  vision  is  not  arbitrary.  To  sup- 
pose so  would  be  to  ignore  certain  well  established  conclusions  of 
physics  and  physiology.  Nor  is  the  relation  of  the  object  to  the 

1  This  appears  to  be  the  course  adopted  by  Messrs.  B.  Russell  and  G.  E.  Moore. 
To  the  present  writer  it  seems  to  over-simplify  the  issue,  and  avoid  very  pertinent 
questions.  Cf.  Moore,  The  Refutation  of  Idealism,  Mind,  N.  S.  (1903),  12,  442, 
449,  453.  2  Op.  cit.,  43  (italics  mine). 


134    A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF   INDEPENDENCE 

other  factors  of  consciousness,  within  the  conscious  process  itself, 
ever  arbitrary.  At  any  rate  there  is  as  much  evidence  of  law 
and  determination  here  as  anywhere  else. 

In  discussing  this  matter  further,  I  shall  employ  that  doctrine 
concerning  consciousness  which  I  personally  hold  to  be  true.  In 
this  case,  I  feel  justified  in  doing  so  because  the  doctrine  in  ques- 
tion does  not  evade  Mr.  Joachim's  difficulty,  but  exhibits  it  in 
the  strongest  possible  form.  Let  us  assume,  then,  that  con- 
sciousness is  a  process  containing  a  nervously  endowed  organism, 
a  specific  type  of  response  to  stimulation,  and  portions  of  an 
environment  selected  by  the  response.  Let  us  assume,  further- 
more, that  this  operation  as  a  whole  is  interested  or  teleological. 
It  follows  that  when  there  is  consciousness  of  B,  B  is  introduced 
into  a  system  governed  by  two  types  of  law.  On  the  one  hand, 
B  will  now  obey  the  laws  of  optics,  acoustics,  etc.,  determining  the 
interrelations  of  physical  stimuli  and  physiological  sensory  mech- 
anisms. On  the  other  hand,  B  will  now  obey  the  biological  and 
ethical  laws  which  govern  the  action  of  an  organism  on  its  en- 
vironment. B,  in  so  far  as  known,  is  determined  by  the  subject 
of  consciousness,  whether  this  be  regarded  as  a  physiological  com- 
plex or  as  a  moral  agent.  And  we  must  conclude  that  B  is  there- 
fore deducible  from  these  factors  under  the  terms  of  the  laws 
governing  its  relations  with  them.  So  that  did  we  but  know  our 
sense-physiology,  our  biology,  and  our  ethics,  as  well  as  we  know 
our  celestial  mechanics,  we  could  presumably  deduce  B  from  our 
consciousness  of  it;  or  'greenness,'  e.g.,  from  the  sensory  process 
by  which  it  is  apprehended.1 

Are  we,  then,  to  conclude  that  'greenness'  is  dependent  on  the 
sensation  of  it  ?  No ;  and  for  a  reason  that  has  already  been  set 
forth.  To  prove  B  to  be  dependent  on  C  it  is  not  sufficient  to 
prove  that  B  is  implied  or  causally  determined  by  C.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  prove  that  it  is  exclusively  determined  by  C.  And  in  so 

1  In  order  to  make  such  a  deduction  it  would,  of  course,  be  necessary  to  possess 
laws  governing  the  interaction  of  organism  and  environment.  Laws  governing  the 
action  of  the  organism  by  itself  would  not  suffice. 


THE   CASE  OF  KNOWLEDGE  135 

far  as  B  is  implied  or  causally  determined  by  A,  as  in  the  case  of 
physical  events,  that  determination  establishes  B's  independence. 
We  may  conclude,  in  other  words,  that  even  though  an  object 
enter  into  relations  of  determination  when  it  is  known,  such  rela- 
tions do  not  prejudice  such  independence  as  it  possesses  by  virtue 
of  its  logical,  mathematical,  or  physical  determination.  In  so  far 
as  any  given  object  is  deducible  otherwise  than  from  conscious- 
ness, it  is  independent  of  consciousness.1 

The  realist  is  by  no  means  one  of  "those  who  admit  that  the  sole 
and  exhaustive  relation  of  the  'self  or  'ego'  to  objects  is  that  of 
knower  of  them."  He  would  willingly  grant  that  "one  who  is 
knower  is,  in  relation  to  objects,  something  else  and  more  than 
their  knower,"  and  that  "objects  are,  in  relation  to  the  one  who 
knows  them,  something  else  and  other  than  things  in  a  knowledge 
relation."  2  He  does  not,  in  other  words,  deal  with  the  knowing 
relation  abstractly,  but  regards  it  as  a  complex  process,  involving 
physical,  physiological,  biological,  and  ethical  factors  that  are  de- 
terminable  by  the  laws  proper  to  these  sciences.  I  do  not  wish  to 
limit  the  extent  to  which  this  determination  may  go,3  nor  even 
to  preclude  the  possibility  of  there  being  physical  complexes  ex- 
clusively determined  by  the  organic  processes  involved  in  conscious- 
ness. But  even  in  such  cases  the  principle  of  independence  would 
not  be  endangered.  If  perceiving  modifies  its  objects  as  one  body 
modifies  another,  then  we  must  attribute  to  the  object  at  least  as 
much  independence  of  consciousness  as  we  attribute  to  one  body 
in  relation  to  another.  No  body  is  ever  wholly  dependent  on 
another  body.  Its  being  modified  by  another  body  means  that  the 
second  body  makes  some  difference  —  but  not  "all  the  difference." 
Hence  the  alteration  of  the  perceived  body  by  the  physiological 
mechanism  of  perception  could  in  any  case  prove  only  that  a  body 

1  Cf.  Pitkin,  below,  396,  etc.,  for  evidence  showing  that  on  the  whole  it  is  char- 
acteristic of  organic  response  not  to  disturb  the  environment ;  that  is,  not  to  intro- 
duce into  it  factors  which  are  not  determined  by  its  own  non-biological  laws. 

*Dewey,  J.,  Brief  Studies  in  Realism,  II,  /.  of  Phil,  Psychol,  etc.,  1911,  8, 
651,  552. 

3  Cf.  Pitkin,  below,  405. 


136    A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

otherwise  independent  of  consciousness  is  in  a  certain  limited  respect 
dependent  thereon.  Furthermore,  considerations  such  as  these 
could  not  possibly  be  used  to  establish  either  the  universality  or 
the  uniqueness  of  dependence  on  consciousness.  It  would  be  a 
dependence  happening  to  some  bodies,  under  peculiar  conditions 
which  sometimes  obtain,  and  more  often  do  not.  It  would  be  only 
a  special  case  of  a  very  common  kind  of  dependence,  arising  from 
the  fact  that  the  organism  belongs  to  the  field  of  interacting  bodies. 
Thus  a  thing  may  become  known  and  cease  to  be  known  (IV, 
10),  even  though  knowledge  involve  a  modicum  of  dependence. 
Thus  B,  e.g.,  might,  owing  to  physical  reasons  alone,  be  brought 
within  the  conscious  process.  Its  earlier  history,  including  arrival 
at  the  point  of  entrance  into  consciousness,  would  be  determined 
by  its  physical  antecedents.  From  thenceforth  its  history  would 
be  determined  by  new  laws,  remaining  independent  of  them  just 
in  proportion  as  it  could  still  be  accounted  for  in  terms  of  the 
old  laws.  It  might  then  drop  out  of  the  new  system  and  there- 
after be  exclusively  determined  by  its  physical  conditions.  In 
this  way  a  body  might  have  a  continuous  history  that  is  independ- 
ent of  consciousness,  despite  an  interval  of  determination  by 
consciousness. 


VI 

CASES  OF  SUBJECTIVITY,  OB  DEPENDENCE  ON  A  PRIMARY  CONSCIOUS- 
NESS 

BY  'subjective'  I  shall  mean  whatever  is  dependent  on  conscious- 
ness. It  is  important  to  recognize  the  existence  of  such  a  cate- 
gory, and  to  present  instances  that  will  illustrate  the  meaning  of 
independence  by  contrast.  We  may  also  hope  in  this  way  to  de- 
velop a  power  of  discriminating  doubtful  cases;  although  many 
cases  must  for  the  present  remain  doubtful. 

We  must  distinguish  at  this  point  between  dependence  on  a 
primary  and  on  a  secondary  consciousness.  We  shall  find  that  a 


DEPENDENCE  ON  A  PRIMARY   CONSCIOUSNESS     137 

thing  which  is  dependent  on  one  consciousness-relation  is  inde- 
pendent of  others ;  or  that  cases  of  subjectivity  are  themselves  in 
an  important  sense  independent. 

1.  Parts  of  consciousness  as  such,  are  dependent  on  the  whole  of 
consciousness.  —  An  object-of -consciousness  cannot  be  such  with- 
out consciousness.     As  we  have  seen  (III,  3)  this  is  really  equiva- 
lent to  asserting  the  dependence  of  a  whole  on  its  parts ;  it  asserts 
the  dependence  of  consciousness  in  a  broader  sense,  on  conscious- 
ness in  a  narrower  and  included  sense.     As  it  asserts  the  de- 
pendence of  consciousness  itself,  and  not  the  dependence  on  some- 
thing else  on  consciousness,  it  is  included  here,  therefore,  only  for 
the  sake  of  clearness. 

But  it  is  worth  while  again  to  emphasize  the  asymmetrical  charac- 
ter of  whole-part  dependence  in  this  application.  Mr.  Russell 
observes  that  awareness  is  "utterly  unlike  other  relations,  except 
that  of  whole  and  part,  in  that  one  of  its  terms  presupposes  the 
other.  A  presentation  must  have  an  object."  l  Were  Mr.  Russell 
to  enter  into  the  particulars  of  the  question,  he  would  find,  I  think, 
that  presentation  is  a  case  of  whole  and  part;  and  that  the  one- 
sided dependence  of  presentation  on  object  is  only  a  special  case 
of  the  asymmetrical  dependence  of  whole  and  part. 

It  is  further  to  be  observed  that  even  should  a  complex  prove  to 
be  dependent  on  the  subject  of  consciousness,  this  would  in  no 
way  involve  the  dependence  of  its  parts  on  the  subject  of  conscious- 
ness, whether  those  parts  be  simple  or  complex.  Still  less  would  it 
involve  the  dependence  of  such  parts  on  the  parts  of  the  subject. 

2.  Parts  of  consciousness  are  reciprocally  dependent  within  the 
system  of  consciousness,  but  only  in  a  limited  sense.  —  In  other 
words,  a  thing  is  a  part  of  consciousness  by  virtue  of  the  action  of 
the  other  parts ;  and  once  it  is  such  its  behavior  is  conformable  to 
the  laws  of  consciousness.     Thus  when  I  perceive  B,  B  is  depend- 
ent for  the  status  'perceived-object/  upon  the  act  of  perception. 
And  in  the  new  r61e  of  the  'perceived-object/  it  obeys  the  laws  of 

1  Russell,  B.,  Meinong's  '  Theory  of  Assumptions  and  Complexes,'  Mind,  N.  S., 
(1904),  13,  515. 


138    A  REALISTIC   THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

perception,  and  is  determined  by  the  other  factors  involved  in 
perception.  Thus  if  we  limit  our  view  to  the  system  objects- 
perceived-by-M ,  B's  history  therein,  its  appearance,  alterations,  and 
disappearance,  are  functions  of  the  subject  M.  But,  as  we  have 
seen,  this  does  not  mean  that  B  is  unqualifiedly  dependent  on  M, 
unless  it  has  been  shown  that  the  limited  system  in  question  de- 
termines B  exclusively. 

Thus,  neither  of  the  cases  thus  far  cited  can  be  said  to  furnish  a 
real  case  of  subjectivity.  We  require  an  instance  of  something 
which  is  a  part  of  consciousness,  which  implies  consciousness,  or 
is  exclusively  determined  thereby. 

3.  The  presence  of  some  elements  alone  in  one  complex  is  dependent 
on  the  selective  action  of  consciousness.  —  There  is,  in  other  words,  a 
privative  character  attaching  to  the  assemblage  of  contents  of 
consciousness  which  can  be  accounted  for  in  no  other  way  but  by 
the  sensibilities,  threshold,  attention,  etc.,  of  a  sentient  organism, 
or  by  the  organism's  selective  interest. 

The  limited  manifold  of  a  mind's  contents  appears  upon  retro- 
spection, when  it  is  contrasted  with  the  larger  manifold  from  which 
it  is  taken.1  One  then  learns  to  distinguish  what-one-was-conscious- 
of,  from  the  complete  environment  of  consciousness.  But  intro- 
spection alone  does  not  reveal  the  causes  of  selection,  the  conditions 
making  the  difference  between  what  does  and  what  does  not  'get 
into'  consciousness.  The  difference  is  evidently  not  one  of  ele- 
mentary constituents ;  for  the  contents  of  consciousness  are  inter- 
changeable with  the  contents  of  the  surrounding  field.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  inherent  nature  or  quality  of  'greenness,'  'round- 
ness,' 'relation,'  etc.,  that  determines  either  their  presence  or  their 
absence  from  among  the  contents  of  a  mind.  But  an  explanation 
is  found  in  the  capacities  and  action  of  the  organism.  Thus  in 

1  In  an  article  entitled  Conceptions  and  Misconceptions  of  Consciousness, 
Psychological  Rev.,  1904,  11,  282-296,  I  attempted  to  justify  and  illustrate  this 
assertion.  James  (Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,  24)  and  Lovejoy  (Reflections 
of  a  Temporalist  on  the  New  Realism,  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1911,  8,  594) 
have  expressed  their  agreement  with  this  view.  But  in  the  article  mentioned  I 
did  not  sufficiently  account  for  the  limited  manifold. 


DEPENDENCE  ON  A   PRIMARY  CONSCIOUSNESS     139 

order  that  'greenness'  shall  appear  among  the  contents  of  mind  M, 
M  must  possess  the  capacity  of  vision  developed  to  the  point  of 
color  discrimination ;  M  must  be  attending  to  '  greenness ' ;  and 
greenness  must  be  relevant  to  some  interest  which  is  moving  M. 
These  and  other  like  conditions  determine  the  difference  between 
greenness  'in,'  and  greenness  or  any  other  element  'out,'  of  con- 
sciousness; or  between  the  class  of  the  'ins'  and  the  class  of  the 
'outs.' 

Thus  the  complex  of  which  one  is  conscious  is  determined  as  a 
limited  or  partial  complex  by  the  relationship  which  it  sustains 
to  the  subject  of  consciousness.  Much  that  is  supposed  to  be 
dependent  on  consciousness  in  a  more  drastic  sense  can  be  explained 
by  this  principle,  notably  the  cases  of  spatial  perspective  and  tem- 
perature relativity.  These  are  selections  from  the  full  geometrical 
or  thermal  field,  and  are  not  created,  but  only  picked  out  by  the 
position  or  state  of  the  sentient  organism.1 

4.  The  presence  of  some  elements  together  in  one  complex  is  depend- 
ent on  the  combining  action  of  consciousness.  —  The  same  condi- 
tions which  determine  the  inclusion  of  contents  of  mind,  determine 
also  their  partnership.  The  physical,  physiological,  biological,  and 
ethical  principles  which  determine  the  entrance  of  'greenness'  into 
the  complex  of  M's  content,  determine  also  what  shall  be  there 
with  'greenness' ;  for  example,  the  complex  'greenness'  and  'round- 
ness,' as  co-contents. 

This  may  be  a  matter  of  little  or  of  great  importance  for  the 
elements  so  correlated.  In  other  words,  it  may  mean  no  more  than 
the  bare  fact  of  fellow-membership,  the  peculiar  cross-relation 
among  contents ;  or  it  may  mediate  some  of  the  further  varieties 
of  dependence  enumerated  below.  Thus  the  relation  sustained  by 
A  and  B  within  the  content-field  may  also  be  wholly  determined  by 
other  causes ;  as  when,  e.g.,  A  and  B  are  perceived  in  their  natural 
spatial  relations.  Or,  A  and  B  may  be  combined  in  a  new  way; 
that  is,  in  a  way  determined  by  the  agency  of  consciousness  ex- 

1  Cf.  Holt,  below,  303  et  al.;  and  Pitkin,  below,  393. 


140    A  REALISTIC   THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

clusively.  It  is  this  which  occurs  when  the  imagination  is  said 
to  be  '  creative.'  Or  A  and  B,  through  their  co-presence  as  content, 
may  indirectly  acquire  new  relations,  such  as  'meaning' ;  and  these 
new  relations  may  be  of  crucial  importance  for  A  and  B.  They 
may,  for  example,  bring  about  the  employment  of  A  and  B  in  the 
subsequent  operations  of  M .  In  short,  as  fellow-members  of  one 
consciousness,  A  and  B  may  begin  a  new  epoch  in  their  careers 
through  being  brought  within  the  play  of  practical  and  social 
forces. 

Thus  far,  then,  we  have  recognized  two  instances  of  genuine 
dependence  on  consciousness ;  both  of  which  can  be  characterized 
as  content-patterns.  Content-complexes  possess  an  individuality 
both  as  respects  what  they  include,  and  as  respects  what  they  in- 
clude together;  and  in  both  respects  are  determined  exclusively 
by  the  agency  (selective  and  combining)  of  the  subject  of  conscious- 
ness. 

5.  Value  is  dependent  on  consciousness.  —  This  is  a  matter  on 
which  neo-realists  are  by  no  means  agreed.1  To  the  present  writer, 
however,  it  seems  evident  that  value  is  a  function  of  desire.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  'precious  metal,'  gold,  is  dependent  on 
desire;  but  only  that  its  preciousness  is  thus  dependent.  It  de- 
rives its  economic  value  from  the  '  demand '  for  it ; 2  and  its  decora- 
tive value  from  the  sensuous  gratification  which  it  affords.  Gold 
in  other  respects  may  be,  and  is,  for  the  most  part,  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  consciousness.  Gold  can,  on  this  ground,  be  declared 
to  be  dependent  on  consciousness,  only  provided  its  preciousness 
is  included  in  its  definition.  There  is  a  physical  or  chemical  gold 
that  is  not  precious ;  which  is,  in  other  words,  definable  and  de- 
terminable  without  reference  to  the  part  it  plays  in  economic  and 
aesthetic  life. 


1  Moore  and  Russell,  e.g.,  hold  that  'good*  is  independent  of  consciousness.  Cf. 
Moore,  G.  E.,  Principia  Ethica,  137.  For  my  own  view,  cf.  The  Moral  Economy, 
Ch.  I,  and  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  Ch.  XIV. 

1  Mere  rarity  does  not,  of  course,  give  value  to  a  thing  unless  there  is  a  demand 
for  it. 


DEPENDENCE  ON  A  PRIMARY  CONSCIOUSNESS     141 

Whether  value  is  dependent  on  knowledge,  or  not,  is  another 
question.  Though  contrary  to  my  belief,  I  am  perfectly  willing, 
for  the  purposes  of  the  present  argument,  to  concede  that  a  thing 
cannot  be  desired  without  being  known.  In  that  case,  then,  value 
does  depend  on  knowledge  of  the  object  possessing  value.  But 
in  any  case,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  value  does  not  depend  on 
being  known  to  be  such.  That  is,  it  is  possible  to  desire  without 
knowing  that  one  desires.  And  it  is  the  primary  relation  of  desire 
that  endows  a  thing  with  value,  whether  the  relationship  itself  be 
known  or  not.  The  important  fact  is  that  A's  value  is  A's  being 
desired  by  M,  N,  or  some  entity  capable  of  desire.  If  one  then 
assumes  that  desire  is  a  variety  of  consciousness,  and  that  an  entity 
capable  of  desire  is  a  subject  of  consciousness,  it  follows  that  A's 
value  is  dependent  on  consciousness ;  not  only  on  the  primary  de- 
siring act  which  directly  endows  it  with  value,  but  on  whatever 
other  conditions  in  the  conscious  subject,  such  as  the  presence  of 
other  desires,  affect  that  primary  desire. 

6.  Works  of  art  are  dependent  on  consciousness.  —  By  'work  of 
art '  I  mean  whatever  complex  is  caused  by  the  physical  organism 
acting  in  pursuance  of  its  interests.  Such  a  complex  may  owe  its 
internal  and  external  arrangement  to  the  organism's  action,  to  a 
greater  or  lesser  extent.  It  may  be  simply  used  'as  it  is' ;  or  it  may 
be  moved,  divided,  redistributed,  or  brought  into  new  physical 
configurations.  In  any  case,  what  happens  to  it  exclusively  in 
consequence  of  the  purposive  action  of  life,  is  dependent  on  con- 
sciousness. Consciousness  is  the  means  of  bringing  things  within 
the  range  of  purposive  action.  It  determines  the  limits  of  the  en- 
vironment 'taken  account  of/  as  distinguished  from  the  total  en- 
vironment. The  range  of  consciousness  defines  a  field  of  things 
liable  to  action.  A  thing  'noticed'  is  a  thing  that  can  be  avoided, 
used,  or  remade,  as  exigencies  may  require.  Furthermore,  the 
actual  dealings  of  the  organism  with  such  objects,  the  process  of 
art  itself,  is  guided  by  consciousness. 

It  is  important  to  note  that  the  modification  of  the  object  is  not 
in  this  case  directly  due  to  consciousness.  By  consciousness  the 


142    A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

object  is  brought  within  reach  of  other  causal  agencies.  It  is  made 
dependent  on  the  body  by  the  action  of  the  mind.  Again,  it  does 
not  follow  that  any  object  A  which  is  subsequently  modified  by  the 
action  of  the  body  is  unqualifiedly  dependent  on  the  mind.  It  is 
dependent  thereon  only  for  what  is  'done'  with  it  or  'made'  with 
it.  It  is  quite  open  to  us  to  suppose  that  A  is  independent  of  its 
being  manipulated  at  all.  Furthermore,  if  for  any  reason  the  modi- 
fying action  of  the  organism  were  not  to  take  place,  A  would  never 
enter  upon  the  phase  of  dependence.  Consciousness  renders  its 
objects  dependent  in  this  sense  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  followed  up 
by  some  physical  operation  involving  the  objects.  In  short,  works 
of  art  are  dependent  on  consciousness  for,  and  only  for,  whatever 
there  is  of  art  in  them. 

7.  Higher  complexes,  such  as  history,  society,  life,  or  reflective 
thought,  are  dependent  on  consciousness.  —  Whatever  complex  con- 
tains consciousness  as  one  of  its  components,  or  whatever  set  of 
premises  implies  consciousness  as  its  necessary  conclusion,  is  evi- 
dently dependent  on  it;  and  I  have  cited  the  most  obvious  in- 
stances that  occur  to  me.  It  is,  of  course,  to  be  remembered  that 
while  these  complexes  as  wholes  or  sets  of  premises  depend  on 
consciousness,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  several  components 
depend  on  consciousness.  Thus  while  a  municipality  depends  on 
consciousness,  because  it  contains  or  implies  it,  its  bricks  and 
mortar  do  not  share  this  dependence.  If  they  are  dependent,  it 
must  be  for  some  other  reason,  such,  e.g.,  as  their  being  works  of  art. 

'Reflective  thought,'  as  defined  by  the  pragmatists,  affords, 
perhaps,  the  most  instructive  instance.  'Reflective  thought'  is  a 
complex  process  in  which  one  'bit  of  experience'  means,  or  is 
'idea-of  another.  In  order  that  A  shall  mean  B,  A,  at  least, 
must  be  'experienced.'  Whether  we  express  this  in  terms  of  the 
whole-part  relation  or  in  terms  of  implication,  in  any  case  the 
meaning  process  depends  on  the  simpler  process  of  experiencing. 
It  does  not,  however,  follow  that  experiencing  is  dependent  on 
meaning,  or  that  the  thing  experienced  is  dependent  on  being 
either  experience  or  idea. 


DEPENDENCE  ON  A  PRIMARY  CONSCIOUSNESS     143 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  above  discussion  a  realm  of  sub- 
jectivity has  been  explicitly  admitted  and  defined.1  If  there 
be  a  polemical  virtue  in  admitting  it,  there  is  a  constructive 
virtue  in  attempting  to  define  it.  It  is  no  part  of  realism,  as  I 
understand  it,  to  reject  "purely  subjective  existence,"  out  of 
hand ; 2  but  rather  to  be  more  specific  about  it,  and  above  all  to 
avoid  hypostasizing  the  facts  of  subjectivity  into  a  substance,  or 
into  a  new  continent  inhabited  only  by  subjectives.  But  perhaps 
I  should  say  that  the  realist  does  deny  'purely  subjective  existence' ; 
for  any  realist  would  deny  that  there  is  anything  that  is  sub- 
jective through  and  through.  A  subjective  complex  can  always  be 
analyzed  into  elements,  or  even  into  lesser  complexes  that  are 
'objective.'  Subjectivity,  in  the  sense  of  exclusive  determination 
by  a  subject  of  consciousness,  attaches  only  to  certain  relation- 
ships or  complexes  in  their  solidarity. 

Furthermore,  realism  does  not  consist  essentially  either  in  the 
denial  or  the  assertion  of  subjectivity;  but  in  the  assertion  that 
there  are  cases  of  entities,  simple  and  complex,  that  are  inde- 
pendent of  consciousness.  ' Epistemological  monism'  means  that 
when  perceived,  things  are  directly  and  identically  present  in 
consciousness ;  in  virtue  of  being  perceived,  they  constitute  what 
is  called  content.  And  realism  adds  the  further  assertion  that, 
in  certain  notable  cases,  at  least,  things  are  none  the  less  inde- 
pendent for  being  so  perceived.  Thus  the  case  for  realism  rests 
on  showing  that  to  be  content  of  a  mind,  is  not  to  be  dependent 
on  a  mind. 

The  questions  of  error,  illusion,  hallucination,  dreams,  etc.,  all 
raise  new  issues;  and  these  issues  are  dealt  with  in  other  parts 
of  the  present  volume.  Subjectivity  is  not  error.  The  whole 
point  of  error  lies  in  the  difference  between  building  'air-castles,' 
and  mistaking  them  for  something  more  substantial.  But  in  the 

1  This  list  of  cases  of  subjectivity  is  not  intended  to  be  complete,  but  only  illus- 
trative. It  is  not  intended  to  exclude,  e.g.,  the  possibility  of  cases  in  which  the 
body  perceived  is  physically  modified  by  the  sentient  organism  in  the  act  of  per- 
ceiving it.  Cf.  above,  135.  *  Lovejoy,  op.  cit.,  597. 


144    A  REALISTIC   THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

concluding  portion  of  the  present  chapter  I  shall  present  cer- 
tain considerations  that  are  at  least  relevant  to  the  question  of 
error.  For  I  propose  to  point  out  that  subjectivity  itself  possesses 
a  certain  independence  as  respects  a  secondary  consciousness,  a 
superadded  knowledge  of  it ;  which  will  at  least  show  that  there  is 
a  radical  difference  between  bare  subjectivity  itself,  and  that 
vicious  subjectivity  through  which  the  term  is  confused  with  the 
misfortunes  of  cognition. 


VII 

THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  SUBJECTIVITY  ON  A  SECONDARY 
CONSCIOUSNESS 

1.  The  subject  of  consciousness  is  independent  of  being  known.  — 
The  subject  of  consciousness  is  of  course  a  case  of  subjectivity. 
I  do  not  mean  that  what  assumes  the  role  of  subject  is  dependent 
on  that  role,  but  that  it  is  dependent  in  that  r61e.  It  is  only  in 
a  loose  sense  that  one  can  speak  of  dependence  here  at  all ;  it  is, 
more  strictly,  a  case  of  identity,  and  I  have  not  thought  it  worth 
while  to  cite  this  as  a  case  of  dependence.  The  important  fact  is 
that  a  subject  need  not  be  known.  A  subject  may  be  the  condition 
of  the  content-status  assumed  by  its  content  without  itself  assum- 
ing such  a  status. 

Thus  there  may  be  consciousness  without  self-consciousness. 
Idealists  have  always  accorded  a  partial  assent  to  this  conclusion, 
in  that  they  have  denied  the  subject  a  place  among  its  own  con- 
tent. They  have  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  content- 
manifold  as  a  whole  is  the  passive  correlate  of  an  active  subject. 
But  they  have  felt  called  on  to  provide  some  unique  way  in  which 
the  subject  may  be  known  without  becoming  content.  The 
result  has  been  to  formulate  a  contradiction  that  they  have  never 
succeeded  in  relieving.  For  to  refer  to  the  subject  as  known, 
whatever  peculiarity  may  attach  to  knowledge  in  this  instance,  is 
evidently  to  put  it  on  the  passive  side  of  the  correlation.  The 


THE   INDEPENDENCE   OF  SUBJECTIVITY       145 

difficulty  is  as  gratuitous  as  it  is  insuperable.  There  is  no  reason 
whatsoever  for  supposing  that  whatever  knows,  must  be  known. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  subject,  in  order  to  condition  a  content- 
manifold,  should  itself  lie  within  the  manifold. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  subject  of  the 
cognitive  relationship  M-A  should  not  be  known,  through  sustain- 
ing a  like  relation  to  another  subject  N.  In  other  words,  there  is 
no  difficulty  in  supposing  a  complex  relationship,  N-M-A,  where 
A  is  content  of  M ,  and  M  of  N.  Thus  it  is  entirely  consistent 
that  the  acting  organism  which  does  not  appear  within  the  field 
of  its  own  objects  should  nevertheless  appear  within  the  field  of 
objects  of  a  second  organism. 

2.  One  consciousness  may  be  independent  of  another.  —  Two  in- 
dividual units  of  consciousness  may  be  dependent  in  that  one  in- 
cludes or  implies  the  other,  or  in  that  the  two  are  mutually  and  ex- 
clusively determined.  But  on  the  same  grounds  one  is  independent 
of  the  other  in  so  far  as  it  does  not  include  or  imply  it,  or  sustain 
relations  of  exclusive  determination  with  it.  And  such  cases 
abound. 

Suppose,  for  example,  as  is  universally  the  case  when  the  ques- 
tion of  solipsism  is  under  discussion,  each  of  two  consciousnesses 
lays  claim  to  the  other.  Thus  M  finds  N  as  a  part  of  itself,  and  N, 
M.  Then  in  so  far  as  M  includes  N  as  its  object,  it  does  not  follow, 
as  is  commonly  argued,  that  N  depends  on  M ,  but  'rather  that  M 
depends  on  N.  Argued  on  these  grounds  the  conclusion  would  be 
just  the  reverse  of  solipsism  and  would  result  in  an  utter  self- 
abnegation.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  it  is  possible  in  the 
majority  of  such  cases  to  define  a  narrower  M  which  excludes  N, 
and  is  independent  of  it.  M  does  not  depend  on  N  unless  M  is  de- 
fined to  exclude  everything  which  happens  to  it.  M  may,  however, 
be  a  soul-substance,  or  a  constant  nucleus  of  states,  or  a  central 
purpose,  and  is  then  not  dependent  on  N  unless  these  include  N  or 
are  defined  and  determined  by  N  exclusively.  And  the  same  holds 
true  of  N  in  its  relations  with  M.  The  root  of  the  solipsistic  ab- 
surdity is  a  failure  to  remember  that  such  a  situation  is  mutual. 

L 


146    A  REALISTIC   THEORY  OF    INDEPENDENCE 

If  there  is  ground  for  asserting  one  witness,  there  is  the  same  ground 
for  asserting  a  'cloud  of  witnesses.'  And  if  any  individual  con- 
sciousness can  set  up  independently  and  then  proceed  to  annex 
other  consciousnesses,  then  these  other  consciousnesses  enjoy  the 
same  right.  If  the  solipsistic  train  of  reasoning  is  generalized,  it 
destroys  itself.  But  as  a  dialectical  argument  it  is  always  general- 
ized. It  postulates  an  independence  in  the  case  of  one  conscious- 
ness which  cannot  on  principle  be  denied  to  others,  and  which  is 
self-contradictory  if  generalized. 

Philosophies  which  emphasize  the  unique  certainty  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  self  make  much  of  the  argument  from  analogy. 
We  are  said  to  know  ourselves  first,  and  then  infer  the  existence 
of  other  selves  from  the  similarity  of  their  behavior  to  our  own. 
But  as  Mr.  Moore  has  very  effectively  pointed  out,  the  argument 
from  analogy  in  this  case  assumes  the  independence  of  physical 
facts.1  Another's  consciousness  is  said  to  be  inferred  from  his  be- 
havior. But  such  an  inferred  consciousness  can  be  regarded  as 
another's  only  provided  I  regard  his  behavior  as  a  physical  reality. 
If  I  construe  another's  behavior  as  my  perception,  then  I  can 
infer  only  my  own  consciousness,  and  not  his.  The  analogy  from 
which  I  argue  may  be  formulated  in  either  one  of  two  ways.  I 
may  say  that  when  I  have  a  perception  of  a  bodily  contortion,  I 
have  also  a  feeling  of  my  own  pain.  Or  I  may  say  that  when  there 
is  a  certain  bodily  contortion  there  is  correlated  with  that  body  a 
feeling  of  pain.  And  the  argument  from  analogy  leads  to  different 
conclusions  in  the  two  cases.  In  the  first  case  having  had  a  second 
and  similar  perception  of  bodily  contortion,  I  expect  myself  to  have 
a  similar  feeling  of  pain.  I  argue,  in  other  words,  from  a  relation 
between  my  perceptions  and  my  feelings.  But  in  the  second  case, 
observing  a  second  and  similar  bodily  contortion,  I  infer  a  similar 
feeling  of  pain  to  be  correlated  with  that  body,  as  mine  is  corre- 
lated with  my  body.  In  the  one  case  I  argue  from  my  perceptions 
to  my  feelings,  and  never  get  outside  the  operation  of  the  laws  of 

1  Moore,  G.  E.,  The  Nature  and  Reality  of  Objects  of  Perception,  Proceedings  of 
the  Aristotelian  Society,  N.  S.,  1906.  6,  111-121'. 


THE   INDEPENDENCE  OF  SUBJECTIVITY        147 

my  own  consciousness ;  in  the  other  case,  I  argue  from  bodies  to 
feelings,  and  have  from  the  beginning  regarded  my  own  conscious- 
ness as  only  an  instance  of  such  correlation.  As  Mr.  Moore  justly 
concludes,  the  existence  of  other  consciousness,  if  it  is  inferred  at 
all,  is  inferred  from  bodies  as  such,  and  not  from  the  states  of  the 
mind  which  performs  the  inference. 

In  my  own  view,  other  consciousness  is  not  inferred  at  all.  It 
is  observed  precisely  as  physical  phenomena  are  observed.  It 
consists  in  a  complex  relation  between  a  sentient  and  interested 
organism  and  some  parts  of  its  environment ;  and  its  independence 
of  another  onlooking  self  is  only  a  special  case  of  the  independence 
of  physical  events  on  the  observation  of  them. 

In  any  case,  there  is  no  reason  for  doubting  the  mutual  independ- 
ence of  selves  as  respects  their  mere  consciousness  of  one  another. 
They  may  enter  into  relations  of  whole  and  part  or  into  physical 
or  social  relations  of  causality;  but  no  universality  or  necessity 
attaches  to  such  dependence.  The  only  general  arguments  for  the 
dependence  of  one  consciousness  on  its  apprehension  by  another, 
namely,  the  dialectics  of  solipsism,  and  the  alleged  inference  of 
others  by  analogy  with  self,  virtually  presuppose  independence  at 
the  outset. 

3.  Mental  content  is  independent  of  introspection.  —  Any  doubts 
as  to  the  truth  of  this  assertion  must  cast  suspicion  on  the  validity 
of  the  method  of  introspection.  For  introspection  is  supposed  to 
be  the  means  of  knowing  what  contents  are  in  the  mind.  These 
contents  are  in  the  mind  by  virtue  of  the  selective  action  of  some 
subject  of  consciousness.  But  once  there  it  is  supposed  that  they 
may  be  observed  there  by  introspection.  Just  in  proportion  as 
introspection  itself  introduces  new  elements,  it  is  a  source  of  con- 
fusion. Such  new  factors  must  if  possible  be  identified  and  elim- 
inated. Introspection  yields  genuine  psychological  results  only 
in  so  far  as  it  reveals  that  which  was  determined  to  be  in  mind  apart 
from  the  act  of  introspection  itself.  Otherwise  it  is  not  knowl- 
edge of  psychical  data,  but  simply  a  psychical  disturbance,  which 
itself  constitutes  a  new  psychical  datum. 


148    A   REALISTIC   THEORY  OF   INDEPENDENCE 

It  is  very  easy  to  fall  into  confusion  here.  It  is  said  that  psychi- 
cal facts  appear  only  on  retrospection  when  they  are  contrasted 
with  the  non-psychical  or  objective.  "The  instant  field  of  the 
present,"  says  James,  "is  only  virtually  or  potentially  either  object 
or  subject  as  yet."  The  'state  of  mind'  is  "first  treated  explicitly 
as  such  in  retrospection."  1  But  to  be  state  of  mind,  and  to  be 
"treated  as  such,"  are  very  different  matters.  To  say  that  the 
limited  field  of  '  states '  is  first  discovered  when  a  mind  doubles  on 
itself,  and  sees  around  its  former  limits,  is  one  thing,  and  is  substan- 
tially correct,  so  far  as  any  single  mind  is  concerned.  But  to  say 
that  the  limits  did  not  exist  until  they  were  'seen  around,'  is  a  very 
different  and  entirely  unjustifiable  assertion.  The  "  instant  field  of 
the  present"  is  a  potential  object  of  introspection,  but  only  because 
it  already  possesses  a  psychical  character.  Did  I  feel  at  liberty 
to  employ  a  conception  of  mind  which  I  have  not  had  an  opportu- 
nity of  expounding  or  justifying  in  the  present  article,2 1  should  go 
further,  and  say  that  even  the  knowledge  of  mental  contents  is 
independent  of  introspection,  in  that  mental  content  may  be  di- 
rectly, and  in  some  instances  more  accurately,  observed  by  a 
second  mind. 

4.  Value  is  independent  of  judgments  about  value.  —  Value,  as 
we  have  seen,  consists  in  a  relation  to  desire.  In  order  that  a  thing 
shall  be  valuable  it  must  be  object-of -desire.  But  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  complex  relationship,  object-of-desire,  must  itself 
be  object  of  consciousness.  For  the  purposes  of  ethical  inquiry, 
needs,  desires,  demands,  etc.,  together  with  their  objects,  must  be 
regarded  as  facts  to  be  thought  about,  and  if  possible,  explained 
systematically.  But  they  are  no  more  dependent  on  ethical  thought 
about  them,  than  physical  events  are  dependent  on  physics. 

It  is  only  as  facts  or  events  that  desires  are  final  or  infallible.  If 
M  desires  A,  then  he  does,  and  there's  an  end  of  the  matter.  But 
if  N,  or  M  himself,  thinks  that  M  desires  A,  then  he  is  liable  to 
error.  Were  value  to  consist  in  thought  about  value,  we  might 

1  Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism,  23,  24. 

J I  refer  to  the  view  discussed  in  Ch.  XII  of  my  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies. 


THE  INDEPENDENCE  OF  SUBJECTIVITY        149 

be  driven  by  the  fear  of  a  skeptical  relativism  into  the  haven  of 
an  absolute  thinker  that  should  standardize  values.  To  say  that 
the  good  is  what  anybody  thinks  good,  is  both  dialectically  and  em- 
pirically untenable.  But  to  say  that  the  good  is  what  anybody 
desires,  is  simply  to  offer  a  definition  which  is  both  in  agreement 
with  fact  and  logically  innocent.  There  is  no  more  dialectical 
difficulty  in  this  than  in  saying  that  an  instrument  is  what  anybody 
uses,  or  a  footing  what  anybody  stands  on.  The  current  confusion 
of  what  should  be  a  perfectly  evident  truth,  is  due  mainly  to  the 
invention  and  wide  use  of  terms  like  'evaluation,'  'appreciation,' 
'affective  judgment,'  etc.,  in  which  the  notions  of  desire  and  of 
judgment  are  fused  together  into  a  vicious  equivocation. 

5.  Perception  and  simple  apprehension  are  independent  of 
reflective  thought.  —  Reflective  thought  in  which  A  means  or  is 
idea  of  B,  requires  that  one  or  both  shall  be  'experienced';  and 
therefore  contains  or  implies  whatever  relation  is  in  question  when 
it  is  said  that  A  or  B  is  'experienced.'  The  relation  of  meaning  or 
ideation  is  a  relation  within  a  manifold  of  elements,  some  of  which 
already  belong  to  consciousness  in  a  more  primitive  sense.  The 
reverse  dependence,  however,  does  not  hold.  In  order  that  con- 
cept A  shall  be  apprehended,  it  does  not  require  to  be  used  as  an 
idea;  in  order  that  body  B  shall  be,  or  be  perceived,  it  does  not 
require  to  be  meant  by  an  idea. 

There  is  good  ground,  therefore,  for  the  pragmatist's  polemic 
against  identifying  things  with  their  thought-status,  or  intellectual 
form.  Things  have  an  independent  footing  in  an  immediate  or 
presentative  knowledge,  which  not  only  exceeds  but  also  underlies 
mediate  or  representative  knowledge.  The  only  fault  in  the 
pragmatist's  view  is  that  it  does  not  clearly  and  expressly  take  the 
next  step,  and  say  as  any  thorough  realist  will  say  that  things  are 
likewise  independent  of  experience. 

This  consideration  affords  just  ground  for  suspecting  that  such 
writers  as  Dewey,  for  example,  are  not  thorough-going  realists. 
They  emphasize  independence  of  a  certain  elaborately  complex  in- 
stance of  experience,  the  instance,  namely,  of  discursive  or  mediate 


150    A  REALISTIC   THEORY  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

knowledge ;  but  they  by  no  means  make  it  clear  that  they  do  not 
take  the  realm  of  experience  itself  to  be  all  inclusive.1  And  such 
a  generalization  would  certainly  be  contrary  to  realism.  Further- 
more, Professor  Dewey's  restriction  of  the  term  'knowledge*  to 
the  discursive  process,  allows  most  instances  of  selective  conscious- 
ness, of  experiencing,  to  fall  outside  the  application  of  his  principle 
of  independence.  Thus  sensing,  for  example,  is  not  knowledge; 
and  therefore  the  principle  that  things  are  independent  of  knowl- 
edge, does  not  hold  of  the  case  of  sensing.  It  would  be  more  proper, 
I  think,  to  regard  sensing  as  a  case  of  knowing.  Even  'smelling,' 
which  Professor  Dewey  thinks  to  be  clearly  beyond  the  pale,  should 
be  so  regarded;  for  it  is  evidently  different  from  "gnawing  or 
poking"  in  that  it  introduces  a  specific  content  into  the  mind,  and 
so  makes  the  mind  aware  of  a  characteristic  of  its  environment.2 
In  any  case  it  is  clear  that  if  things  are  universally  dependent  on 
such  experiencing  as  sensing,  and  if  knowledge  takes  place  only 
within  the  field  of  experiencing,  then  the  independence  of  things  on 
knowledge  still  leaves  them  dependent  on  action,  or  on  life,  or  on 
some  such  principle,  which  for  a  thorough-going  realism  must  be 
regarded  as  all  one  with  knowledge. 

Philosophy  is  here  again  the  victim  of  an  equivocal  term.  For 
'experience'  may  be  taken  to  mean  the  things  experienced,  or  the 
experience-relationship  itself.  To  contend  that  experience  is  in- 
dependent of  discursive  thought  may  still  leave  one  well  within  the 
ramparts  of  idealism.  For  the  independent  thus  defined,  may  be 
construed  as  the  complex  process  of  experiencing.  One  does  not 
become  a  realistic  outlaw  until  one  has  either  expressly  interpreted 
experience  in  the  first  sense,  as  things,  simply,  or  has  expressly  as- 
serted things  to  be  independent  of  experience,  in  the  sense  of  ex- 
periencing or  being  experienced. 

!Cf.  Dewey,  J.,  Reality  as  Experience,  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol,  etc.,  1906,  3, 
253-257.  I  have  discussed  this  matter  more  fully  in  my  Present  Philosophical 
Tendencies,  pp.  224-225,  314-316. 

»Cf.  Dewey,  J.,  Brief  Studies  in  Realism,  I,J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1911,  8, 
396  (note). 


CONCLUSION  151 

VIII 

CONCLUSION 

Our  conclusion,  briefly  summarized,  is  as  follows :  — 

1.  Independence  is  non-dependence. 

2.  Dependence  is  not  the  same  as  relation,  but  is  a  special  type 
of  relationship,  in  which  the  dependent  contains,  implies,  or  is  ex- 
clusively caused  or  implied  by  that  on  which  it  is  dependent. 

3.  The  independent  may  be  related  or  not,  provided  it  is  not 
related  as  above  (2). 

4.  The  object  of  consciousness  is  related  to  consciousness,  but 
it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  dependent  on  consciousness. 

5.  There  are  entities,  embracing  all  simples  and  some  complexes, 
which  are  not  dependent  on  consciousness,  because  not  related  to 
it  as  above  (2). 

6.  This  in  no  way  prevents  their  being  otherwise  related  to  con- 
sciousness. 

7.  There  are  cases  of  subjectivity,  that  is,  of  complexes,  that  as 
such  are  dependent  on  consciousness. 

8.  Subjective  complexes  both  contain  entities  that  are  hide- 
pendent  of  them,  and  also  are  independent  of  secondary  conscious 
relationships  into  which  they  may  enter. 


A  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 


A  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

BY  EDWARD  GLEASON  SPAULDING 

I 

INTRODUCTORY 

IN  this  essay  I  shall  attempt  both  a  general  and  a  specific  de- 
fense of  analysis.  A  general  defense  might  not  be  exclusively 
dependent  upon  a  general  realistic  position;  but  there  are  re- 
vealed in  a  defense  of  analysis  as  such  many  reasons  which  make 
for  the  correctness  of  the  realistic  position.  My  specific  purpose 
becomes,  then,  not  simply  to  defend  analysis  qua  analysis,  but 
also  by  this  means  to  defend  the  general  realistic  interpretation 
of  both  whole  and  part.  I  shall,  then,  defend  analysis  as  a  method 
of  knowing  which  discovers  entities  or  parts  which  are  real  in  quite 
the  same  sense  as  are  the  wholes  which  are  analyzed.  This  posi- 
tion may  be  called  Analytical  Realism.1 

1.  The  Types  of  Analysis  and  of  Wholes.  —  There  are  two 
general  types  of  analysis:  (1)  formal,  and  (2)  experimental 
or  'material/  both  of  which  imply  a  relation  of  great  im- 
portance to  science  and  philosophy,  namely,  the  whole-part 
relation.2  That  which  is  analyzed  is  a  whole.  Analysis  is 
the  discovery,  or,  possibly,  the  invention  of  parts  —  the  parts  of 
the  whole  analyzed.  Which  of  these  analysis  is  —  discovery  or 
invention,  —  revelation  of  fact  or  falsification  — ,  is  in  reality  the 
central  question  at  issue.  On  this  point  parties  divide.  But  all 
agree  that  that  which  is  analyzed  is  in  some  sense  a  whole,  and  that 
that  to  which  analysis  leads  is  in  some  sense  a  part. 

1  The  general  evidence  and  proof  for  the  realistic  position  are  presented  in  the 
Introduction  to  this  volume. 

1  See  Perry,  this  volume,  107,  and  Russell,  B.  Principles  of  Mathematics  I,  360 
el  passim. 

155 


156  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

By  experimental  analysis  is  meant  that  kind  of  analysis  which 
is  made  in  the  case,  for  example,  of  chemical  compounds.  These 
are  sometimes  physically  taken  apart,  and  their  constituents  are 
perceived  or  revealed  in  quite  the  same  way  as  are  they  themselves, 
as  wholes.  It  is  this  kind  of  analysis  that  is  made,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  at  least,  of  those  entities  which  are  dealt  with  in  the 
chemical,  the  physical,  the  biological,  and,  perhaps  also,  the 
psychological  laboratories.  It  may  not  be  justifiable  to  call  all 
such  analysis  'material,'  except  by  analogy,  but  it  can  be  called 
experimental.  -j 

Of  the  same  character  is  that  analysis  which  accompanies  our 
non-scientific,  perceptual,  and  certain  conceptual  processes. 
Perception  is  itself  analytical,  discriminatory,  selective.  In  it, 
preceding  all  scientific  hypothesis,  there  is  analysis  like  that  to 
which  experimentation  itself  leads. 

By  formal  analysis  is  meant  that  kind  which  is  made  of  such 
typical  wholes  as  the  motion  of  a  projectile,  the  flow  of  an  electri- 
cal current,  the  number-continuum,  the  continuity  of  time,  etc., 
where  the  parts  are  distinguished  and  discovered,  but  nevertheless 
left  in  situ.  Some  of  these  wholes  are  physically  observable  en- 
tities and  experimentally  analyzable.  But  not  exclusively  so. 
At  a  certain  point  other  methods  must  be  brought  in,  which  are 
identical  with  mathematical  analysis,  methods  which  are  based 
on  rational  principles,  methods  which  lead  to  analytical  results 
that  in  many  cases  are  directly  confirmed  by  further  experimentally 
directed  observation  and  measurement.  Such  analysis  may  be 
called  formal. 

Examples  of  specific  complexes  which  are  analyzed  might  be 
cited  in  great  number,  and  so,  of  course,  might  also  the  specific 
analyses  and  the  results  to  which  they  lead.  But,  just  as  the  types 
of  analysis  can  be  distinguished,  so  also  can  a  classification  be 
made  of  the  complexes  or  wholes  which  are  analyzable,  although 
to  do  this  itself  involves  analysis,  and  constitutes  a  statement  of 
results  rather  than  a  method  of  proof.  But  the  very  type  of  analy- 
sis which  is  involved  in  discriminating  not  only  different  lands  of 


TYPES  OF  ANALYSIS  AND  OF  WHOLES         157 

analysis,  but  different  kinds  of  wholes,  is  subsequently  considered 
in  detail  in  this  essay,  and  receives  its  full  justification.1  There 
are: 

1.  Aggregates  or  collections  of  any  number  of  objects  in  any 
order,  hi  numerical  conjunction.     Thus  there  is  the  collection  of 
objects  with  which  I  am  now  concerned,  namely,  this  chair,  and 
this  table,  and  this  pen,  and  my  thoughts,  and  the  concept  'whole,' 
and  1  and  2,  etc. 

2.  Classes  formed  or  composed  of  parts  which  are  not  classes, 
but  which  may  be  either  organic  wholes,  or  individuals,  or  simples, 
or  collections.     Thus  the  atoms  of  carbon,  all  electrons,  the  even 
integers,  the  rational  fractions,  are  such  wholes. 

3.  Classes  formed  or  composed  of  subordinate  classes;    ex- 
amples:   element,   number,   integer,   etc.,   which  are  subdivided 
respectively  into  the  classes,  monovalent  and  bivalent  element, 
cardinal  and  ordinal  number,  odd  and  even  integer. 

4.  Unities  or  organic  wholes ;  examples :  any  specific  individual 
chemical  compound  existing  at  some  particular  place  and  time, 
any  one  organism,  any  one  individual  molecule  or  atom. 

2.  What  is  Analysis  f  —  The  wholes  which  are  analyzed  differ  as 
the  above  classification  indicates,  and  analysis  is  itself  either  mate- 
rial or  formal.  But  what  are  the  characteristics  of  the  genus  analysis 
which,  for  example,  is  presupposed  by  the  classification  of  analyses 
and  by  the  discovery  that  there  are  wholes  or  complexes  composed  of 
parts  ?  The  answer  is  that  analysis  is,  doubtless,  itself  somewh  at  com- 
plex and  devious,  and  that  perhaps  anything  more  than  a  working 
definition  of  it  is  most  difficult.  Analysis  may  be  a  process,  but 
if  it  is,  it  would  appear  to  be  such  a  complex  one  that  a  simple 
definition  of  it  is  impossible,  and  that  its  own  character  can  be  re- 
vealed only  by  an  elaborate  analysis.  But  an  exact  and  precise 
logical  definition  may  not  be  necessary.  Every  one  understands 
in  a  general  way  what  analysis  is,  what  it  means,  and  what  it  does. 
To  this  general  understanding  appeal  may  be  made,  and,  relying 

1  See  Section  IV  of  this  essay. 


158  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

on  it,  it  may  be  said  that  to  analyze  means  to  discover  that  an 
entity  is  in  some  sense  formed  or  composed  of  parts.  Thus,  as 
previously  asserted,  analysis  involves  the  whole-part  relation. 
The  entity  which  is  formed  or  composed  of  parts  is  for  that  reason 
called  a  whole  or  complex,  although,  in  some  cases,  its  parts  may 
in  turn  be  wholes  or  complexes,  as  we  have  seen.  The  position, 
however,  that  analysis  means  in  every,  or  even  in  any  case,  dis- 
covery of  parts,  —  implying  that  these  already  exist  or  subsist 
independently  of  the  analysis  and  discovery  —  is  one  which  is  dis- 
puted. As  opposed  to  it  the  position  is  taken  by  some,  that  to 
analyze  means  to  invent,  to  construct  for  purely  practical  purposes 
of  one  kind  or  another,  such  as  prediction  and  the  control  of  nature, 
an  artificial  division  into  parts.1  This  view  fits  in  with,  or  is  a  part 
of  that  aspect  of  pragmatism  which  is  well  called  the  instrumental 
or  biological  view  of  knowledge.2  According  to  it,  analysis  is 
simply  an  intellectual  instrument,  a  mode  of  adaptation,  where 
anything  which  works,  in  the  sense  that  it  does  adapt  the  organism 
to  its  environment,  is  to  be  accepted  at  least  at  its  face  value, 
namely,  that  it  does  work.  Only,  of  course,  pragmatism  goes 
beyond  this,  and  identifies  this  working  with  truth.  Secondly, 
this  pragmatic  view  is  sometimes  extended  to  mean  that  reality 
in  general,  or  any  specific  part  of  reality  which  may  be  selected 
and  distinguished  from  other  parts,  is  plastic  and  lends  itself  to 
almost  any  kind  of  analysis  and  moulding,  but  that  the  analyses 
which  are  or  have  been  actually  made  are  necessarily  constructed 
from  a  human  point  of  view.  This  is  the  humanistic  interpretation 
of  analysis,  as  well  as  of  its  counterpart,  synthesis,  and  of  philo- 
sophical and  scientific  method  in  general.3  Thirdly,  both  of  these 
interpretations  are  compatible  with  that  interpretation  of  analysis 
which  makes  its  validity  identical  with  its  verification,  giving 
psychological  pragmatism,4  —  or  dependent  upon  and  tested  by 

1  Bergson,  H.  (Mitchell,  A.,  trans.)  Creative  Evolution.     1910. 
1  Cf.  Montague,  W.  P.,  May  a  Realist  be  a  Pragmatist,  J.  of  Phil,  Paychol,  etc., 
1909,  6,  460  and  485. 

3  Cf.  Montague,  ibid.,  561.  «  Cf.  Montague,  ibid.,  543. 


PRAGMATISM  159 

its  utility  or  value,  giving  logical  pragmatism.1  These  four  posi- 
tions as  to  the  nature  of  analysis  are  open  to  various  criticisms, 
among  them  being  those  which  can  be  made  from  a  realistic  stand- 
point. For  the  realist  regards  analysis,  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases  at  least,  to  be  the  discovery  in  a  whole  of  elements  or  parts 
which  exist  or  subsist  independently  of  the  analysis  and  discovery. 
He  grants,  of  course,  that  analysis  is  useful,  admits,  perhaps,  that 
there  are  few  things  more  so,  but  he  finds  that  such  usefulness 
presupposes  the  realistic  interpretation  of  analysis.2  So,  also, 
he  admits  that  the  validity  of  analysis  may,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent at  least,  be  tested  by  its  value,  although  so  to  do  involves 
many  difficulties  and  ambiguities  as  to  what  standard  of  value 
shall  be  selected.  Further,  those  aspects  of  wholes  which 
shall  be  discovered  as  parts  may  be  dependent  for  their  discovery 
upon  distinctly  human  interests.  For  various  and  sundry  reasons, 
namely,  for  those  of  scientific  tradition,  of  religious  feeling,  of  aes- 
thetic appreciation,  —  all  human  '  things '  —  the  actual  analyses 
which  men  are  interested  in  making  may  be  only  some  out  of  many 
that  are  possible;  they  may  be  selective.  However,  the  realist 
can  make  all  of  these  admissions  and  yet  retain  his  realism.  In- 
deed, not  only  this,  but  he  holds,  further,  that  he  can  show  that 
all  of  these  positions  which  he  is  willing  to  admit  demand  his 
realism  rather  than  controvert  it.  It  is  only  to  the  position, 
that  the  validity  of  analysis  is  in  any  specific  case  identical  with 
its  verification,  that  the  realist  is  fundamentally  opposed.  For 
such  a  position  means,  he  holds,  subjective  idealism.3  Of  that  he 
can  and  will  have  none. 

But  the  pragmatic  interpretation  is  not  the  only  one.  There 
is  at  least  one  very  distinct  type  of  attack,  which,  at  the  same  time 
that  it  is  pragmatic  to  a  certain  extent,  goes  quite  beyond  this 
interpretation.  It  is  an  attack  which,  while  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  realistic  view  of  the  results  of  analysis  as  discovery,  is,  never- 

1  Cf.  Montague,  ibid.,  561.  *  Montague,  in  the  four  papers  just  cited. 

8  Montague,  ibid.,  543. 


160  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

theless,  realistic  in  its  interpretation  of  the  whole  which  is  analyzed. 
It  opposes  one  kind  of  realism  only  to  reinstate  another,  using 
rationalism  as  its  method  of  attack,  and  mysticism  in  support  of 
the  realism  which  it  does  accept.  Such  an  attack  on  analysis 
has  been  recently  advanced  by  Bergson,1  and  has  attracted  much 
attention.  A  similar  attack  was  made  by  Bradley 2  less  recently. 

The  very  core  of  this  attack  is  the  claim  that  analysis  is  identical 
with  falsification  in  that  very  precise  sense  in  which  this  term  (fal- 
sification) can  be  defined,  —  namely,  as  involving  contradiction. 
According  to  this  attack,  analysis  is  the  finding,  or  inventing,  or 
constructing,  or  discovering  —  or  what-not  —  (in  a  whole)  of 
parts  which  in  a  certain  one,  or  in  a  few,  or  in  many  respects  are 
the  contradictories  of  the  whole.  For  example,  it  holds  that  the 
analysis  of  motion  leads  to  'rests,'  as  terms,3  but  that,  since  rest 
is  the  contradictory  of  motion,  either  the  analysis  or  the  intuition 
of  the  whole,  of  the  motion  qua  motion,  is  false,  and  the  former 
alternative  is  chosen.  For  Bergson,  such  contradictory  parts 
are  invented  -1-  by  intellectual  processes,  and,  were  he  consistent, 
he  would  have  to  admit  that  anything  short  of  One  all-inclusive, 
interpenetrated,  Evolving-whole  is  self-contradictory,  and  so  false 
and  not  real.  For  Bradley,  the  parts  are  produced,  or  even  pos- 
sibly discovered,  by  intellectual  processes,  but,  since  they  in- 
volve contradiction,  anything  short  of  One  Absolute  is  false  and 
unreal.  Briefly,  the  recipe  for  both  of  these  philosophers  seems 
to  be,  Self -contradictory  'things'  are  what  we  find  or  get  when  we 
reason;  therefore,  to  get  at  truth,  at  reality,  avoid  reason,  and 
use  feeling,  intuition,  ecstasy,  absorption  ! 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  present  the  history  either  of  the  attack 
or  of  the  defense.  But  the  point  must  be  made,  that  all  the  at- 
tacks on  analysis  are  made  by  methods  which  themselves  involve 
analysis  or  are  analytical.  The  analysis  which  is  attacked  may 
be  different  from  the  analysis  which  is  used  in  attacking,  and  so, 

1  Creative  Evolution,  and  Time  and  Free  Will  (Pogson,  F.  L.,  trans.)  1910. 

*  Bradley,  F.  H.,  Appearance  and  Reality,  1894. 

*  Bergson.     Creative  Evolution,  163. 


CHARACTER  OF  ANALYSIS  161 

conceivably,  a  specific  attack  might  be  valid.  But  if  it  were,  it 
could  serve  to  invalidate  only  certain  kinds  of  analysis,  to  show 
their  limitations,  etc.,  but  the  invalidation  could  not  be  universal. 
The  validity  of  at  least  the  means  of  attack  would,  willy-nilly,  be 
presupposed.  Some  analysis,  at  some  point,  would  be  exempt 
from  successful  attack  and  criticism.  Then  the  supposition  would 
remain,  that,  if  some  analysis  is  valid,  all  might  be,  and  that  at 
best  only  certain  specific  analyses  could  be  in  error,  but  that  analy- 
sis qua  analysis  could  not  be  invalidated.1 

But  to  return  to  our  question  as  to  what  analysis  is.  Given  a 
whole  which,  for  one  reason  or  another,  is  known  to  be  analyzable, 
then  analysis  reveals  parts,  but  it  also  reveals  the  relations  which 
relate  and  so  organize  these  parts  into  some  kind  of  whole.  Con- 
sider also  those  properties  which,  in  some  cases,  the  whole,  as  a 
whole,  may  have  different  from  those  of  the  parts.  Of  course, 
analysis  reveals  these  also.  The  analysis  may  be  incomplete  in  the 
sense  that  there  may  be  further  parts,  that  is,  parts  of  parts,  which 
are  not  yet  revealed ;  but,  if  the  analysis  is  incomplete  only  in  this 
sense,  that  is,  if  there  have  been  revealed  parts,  their  organizing  rela- 
tions, and,  in  some  cases,  the  possibly'  specific  properties  of  the 
whole,  then  the  analysis  may  be  said  to  be  adequate.  It  exhausts 
the  whole  up  to  the  point  that  it  reaches,  in  that,  while  the  speci- 
fication of  all  that  the  analysis  reveals  does  not  specify  the  whole, 
the  whole,  nevertheless,  is  the  parts  and  their  properties  and  the 
relations  relating  the  parts  and  the  possibly  specific  properties  of 
the  whole.  There  may  be  further  parts  of  parts,  more  properties, 
more  relations  to  be  revealed,  but  this  of  itself  does  not  invalidate 
the  position  that  the  properties  of  the  parts  and  the  generating 
relations  which  are  revealed  are  quite  as  real  as  is  the  whole  which 
is  analyzed,  are  not  the  contradictory  of  the  whole,  and  exist,  or 
subsist,  independently  of  the  discovery  and  of  the  specification. 

This,  then,  is  one  meaning  of  analysis,  a  more  precise  and  ade- 
quate one  than  the  one  previously  given.  It  is,  however,  another 

1  Cf.  my  paper,  The  Postulates  of  a  Self-critical  Epistemology,  Phil.  Review,  18, 
615. 

It 


162  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

definition  which  is  tacitly  made  by  the  attacking  party  of  the 
Bergsonian,  and,  sometimes,  of  the  Bradleian  type,  although  not 
by  the  pragmatist,  the  definition,  namely,  by  which  analysis  is 
held  to  give  only  terms  and  in  which  no  cognizance  is  taken  of  the 
organizing  relations.  Advantage  is  taken  of  this  omission  to  con- 
trast the  terms  and  their  properties  with  the  whole  and  its  prop- 
erties, and  thus,  through  this  neglect,  to  find  the  looked-for 
contradiction  between  part  and  whole,  and  so  the  falsifying 
character  of  the  analysis. 

II 

COLLECTIONS  AND  ENUMERATIVE  ANALYSIS 

THE  first  type  of  whole  which  can  be  distinguished  is  that 
whole  which  is  simply  an  aggregate,  or  collection.  Among  its 
parts  there  may  be  similarities  and  differences  of  various  degrees. 
So,  too,  may  the  types  of  relations  which  exist,  or  subsist,  be- 
tween these  parts  be  many  or  few,  similar  or  widely  different. 
Certain  specific  relations  may  exist,  or  subsist,  between  certain 
parts,  others  between  other  parts,  but  in  any  case,  whatever  be 
the  parts,  and  whatever  be  the  relations,  the  parts  form  a  col- 
lection or  aggregate  in  that  all  the  parts  are  related  to  one  another 
by  the  relation  which  is  expressed  by  and.1  The  process  of  enu- 
meration can  be  started  with  some  parts,  whether  or  not  it  is  com- 
pleted or  completable.  In  this  sense,  all  the  parts  of  any  col- 
lection, or  any  number  of  parts  of  any  collection,  form  a  whole ; 
they  are  denumerable,  and  so  stand  in  one  to  one  correlation  with 
the  cardinal  integers.  This  relation  to  the  members  of  at  least 
one  other  class,  the  cardinal  integers,  the  parts  of  a  mere  collection 
have,  whether  or  not  between  all  of  them  as  parts  any  one  other 
relation  holds  exclusively  or  not. 

In  this  connection  I  may  quote  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell.     "When 

1 1  shall  regard  and  as  expressing  a  relation,  namely,  the  numerical  conjunctive 
relation,  although  there  are  departures  from  this  usage.  Cf.  Russell,  Principles 
of  Mathematics,  71. 


COLLECTIONS  AND  ENUMERATIVE  ANALYSIS     163 

a  class  is  regarded  as  defined  by  the  enumeration  of  its  terms,  it  is 
called  a  collection.  By  a  collection  I  mean  what  is  conveyed  by 
'A  andB'  or  'A  and  B  and  C,'  or  any  other  enumeration  of  definite 
terms.  The  collection  is  defined  by  the  actual  mention  of  the 
terms,  and  the  terms  are  connected  by  and.  It  would  seem  that 
and  represents  a  fundamental  way  of  combining  terms,  and  that 
just  this  way  of  combination  is  essential  if  anything  is  to  result  of 
which  a  number  other  than  1  can  be  asserted."  J  "Every  pair  of 
terms,  without  exception,  can  be  combined  in  the  manner  indi- 
cated by  'A  and  B,'  and  if  neither  A  nor  B  be  many,  then  A  and 
B  are  two.  A  and  B  may  be  any  conceivable  entities,  any  possible 
object  of  thought,  they  may  be  points  or  numbers  or  true  or  false 
propositions  or  events  or  people,  in  short  anything  that  can  be 
counted.  A  teaspoon  and  the  number  3,  or  a  chimsera  and  a  four- 
dimensional  space,  are  certainly  two.  Thus  no  restriction  what- 
ever is  to  be  placed  on  A  and  B.  It  should  be  observed  that  A 
and  B  need  not  exist,  but  must,  like  anything  that  can  be  men- 
tioned, have  Being.  The  distinction  of  Being  and  existence  is 
important,  and  is  well  illustrated  by  the  process  of  counting. 
What  can  be  counted  must  be  something,  and  must  certainly  be, 
though  it  need  by  no  means  be  possessed  of  the  further  privilege  of 
existence.  Thus  what  we  demand  of  the  terms  of  our  collection  is 
merely  that  each  should  be  an  entity. "  2 

In  this  sense,  then,  anything,  taken  with  at  least  one  other  'some- 
thing/ and  these  two  with  another  something,  and  so  on,  form  a  whole. 
Accordingly,  there  is  an  aggregate  or  collection  of  all  entities — of 
all  terms,  and  relations,  and  classes,  and  concepts,  and  propositions, 
etc.,  which  exist,  or  subsist.  Such  an  aggregate  may  be  called  the 
universe,  and  is,  in  just  the  sense  defined,  a  whole.  It  has  parts, 
and  its  parts  are  connected  by  numerical  conjunction,  but  that 
does  not  preclude  the  existence  or  subsistence  both  of  wide  dif- 
ferences and  of  great  similarities  among  its  parts,  and,  in  the  latter 
case,  of  classes  whose  parts  are  related  by  one  or  more  specific 
relations;  nor  does  it  preclude  the  independence  both  of  terms 

1  ibid.,  69.  »  tbid.,  71. 


164  DEFENSE   OF  ANALYSIS 

from  one  another  and  of  classes,  whether  closely  similar  or  widely 
different  from  one  another,  at  the  same  time  that  these  terms  and 
classes  are  related.  Relatedness  and  independence  are  quite  com- 
patible,1 and  that  totality  of  entities  which  is  the  universe  is  quite  as 
consistent  with  pluralism  as  with  monism,  with  independence  and 
great  differences  as  with  dependence  and  one  fundamental  simi- 
larity. 

In  the  case,  then,  of  the  first  type  of  whole,  the  terms  are  simply 
the  parts  which  are  enumerated,  and  the  chief  organizing  relation 
is  simply  that  which  is  expressed  by  the  connective  and.  Any  whole 
which  is  an  aggregate  may  also  be  more  than  this,  and,  if  it  is, 
there  are  other  organizing  relations  than  and.  But  a  whole  may 
be  a  mere  aggregate  notwithstanding  certain  other  relations,  such  as 
those  of  similarity  and  difference,  among  its  parts.  Such  a  whole, 
however,  does  not  seem  on  the  basis  of  genuinely  empirical  investiga- 
tion to  possess  any  distinctive  properties  as  a  whole ;  it  is  simply  its 
parts,  with  their  properties,  summed  and  numerically  conjoined. 
Nevertheless,  on  some  other  basis,  that  of  some  assumed,  specula- 
tive principle,  from  whose  standpoint  the  attack  is  made,  the  col- 
lective whole,  especially  that  collective  whole  which  is  called  'the 
universe/  is  made  to  have  properties  which  its  parts  do  not  have, 
and  to  be  of  such  a  character  as  a  whole  that  it  cannot  be  analyzed 
without  falsification. 

One  has  only  to  consider  the  attacks  of  Bergson  and  Bradley  to 
find  this  statement  confirmed.  Each  of  these  philosophers  attacks 
that  ordinary  conceptual  analysis  which  is  crystallized  in  the  lan- 
guage of  everyday  discourse,  and  on  the  basis  of  which  we  can 
make  an  enumeration  of  kinds.  But  each  also  attacks  that  con- 
ceptual analysis  which  is  identical  in  part  with  science.2 

For  each  of  these  attackers  of  analysis,  the  real  world,  ultimate 

1  See  Perry,  this  volume;  113;  also  The  Program  and  First  Platform  of  Six 
Realists,  (See  Appendix.)  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1910,  7,  393  ;  also  Introduction 
to  this  volume. 

1  Bergson,  Creative  Evolution,  9,  160-163,  303  et  passim,  and  Bradley  all 
through  his  Appearance  and  Reality. 


BERGSON  AND  BRADLEY  165 

reality,  cannot  be  disclosed  by  analysis  —  if  we  take  their  explicit 
claims  and  ignore  their  tacit  usage  and  presuppositions.  It  is 
not  a  collection,  not  a  class,  rfot  an  organic  unity,  but  is  in  some 
sense  just  One  —  One  Absolute  or  One  Evolution.  Analysis  can 
at  best  have  only  a  pragmatic  justification,  for,  false  though  it  is, 
ironically  it  can  serve  one  finite  part  of  this  universe,  namely,  one 
organism,  in  adapting  itself  to  other  parts,  and  in  finding  out  that 
they  are  false  and  that  only  the  whole  is  true!  Why,  now,  all 
this  subversion  of  the  results  of  both  common  sense  and  science 
and  of  much  philosophy  ?  By  reason  of  what  are  the  conclusions 
of  these  philosophers  reached  —  for  they  do  reason,  do  use  prem- 
ises, do  analyze  ? 

The  position,  then,  as  to  the  nature  of  wholes,  upon  which  this 
attack  on  the  possibility  of  their  analysis  is  based,  is  shown  by 
only  a  slight  inspection  to  be  nothing  more  or  less  than  that  very 
theory  which  the  realist  finds  used  so  frequently  by  his  opponents, 
namely,  the  theory  of  'internal  relations.'  The  attacking  party 
grants  that  wholes  are  manifolds  and  complexes 1 — in  some  sense,  — 
but  holds  that  the  parts  or  elements  are  all  constituted  by  their 
relations  to  all  other  parts  in  the  complex.  Briefly,  there  is  a  uni- 
versal interpenetration !  But  this  is  the  theory  of  internal  re- 
lations, or  at  least  one  aspect  of  this  theory,  namely,  that  which 
may  be  called  the  'modification'  or  'constitutive'  aspect  of  the 
theory  in  distinction  from  the  'underlying-reality'  aspect.2  Ac- 
cording to  the  internal  theory  in  general,  as  inclusive  of  both  'as- 
pects,' independence 3  precludes  relatedness,  and  conversely. 
But  relatedness  is  undeniable  fact.  Therefore,  it  is  concluded, 
related  terms  are  mutually  dependent.  The  next  question  is, 
What  is  the  nature  of  this  dependence?  According  to  one  theory, 
the  constitutive,  this  mutual  dependence  can  only  mean  that 
each  term  makes  a  difference  to  the  other  and,  therefore,  consti- 

1  See,  e.g.  Bergson,  ibid.,  162. 

2  Cf.  my  papers,  The  Logical  Structure  of  Self-Refuting  Systems,  Phil.  Rev.,  19, 
3,  276,  and  6,  610;  and  Russell,  The  Basis  of  Realism,  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc., 
8,  158. 

8  Cf.  Perry,  this  volume,  loc.  cil. 


166  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

tutes  it,  at  least  in  part.  The  two  terms  in  relation  form  a  unity, 
a  whole,  of  some  kind.  But  then,  if  another  term  is  related  to 
this  unity  and  to  each  of  its  terms,  and  so  on,  and  so  on,  very  clearly 
each  so-called  term  becomes  or  is  infinitely  complex.  Manifestly 
it  becomes  most  difficult  if,  indeed,  not  impossible,  to  discover 
what  a  term  is  or  to  identify  such.  Seemingly,  everything  is  a 
complex,  even  those  ultimate  terms  which  such  a  complex  would 
seem  to  imply. 

According  to  the  other  aspect  of  the  'internal  theory/  the 
mutual  dependence  of  two  related  terms  implies  a  unity,  but  this 
unity  cannot  exist,  or  subsist,  as  identical  with  the  terms,  for  they 
are  two.  Therefore  the  unity  exists,  or  subsists,  as  an  underlying  or 
transcendent  entity,  whose  function  it  is  to  mediate  the  relation.  By 
using  contradictory  terms,  for  example,  self  and  not-self,  this  unity 
can  be  made  all  inclusive  and  yet  One.  However,  at  this  point,  this 
second  aspect  of  the  internal  theory  does  not  concern  us  greatly. 
That  which  does  is  the  constitutive,  the  interpenetrative  aspect, 
for  it  is  upon  this  that  at  least  one  part  of  the  attack  on  analysis 
is  based.  As  confirming  this  assertion  we  may  cite  M.  Bergson's 
statement  that  "The  distinct  outlines  which  we  see  in  an  object, 
and  which  give  it  its  individuality  are  the  plan  of  our  eventual 
actions  that  is  sent  back  to  our  eyes,  as  though  by  a  mirror,  when 
we  see  the  surfaces  and  edges  of  things.  Suppress  this  action, 
and  with  it  consequently  those  main  directions  which  by  percep- 
tion are  traced  out  for  it  in  the  entanglement  of  the  real,  and  the 
individuality  of  the  body  is  reabsorbed  in  the  universal  inter- 
action which,  without  doubt,  is  reality  itself."  l 

Clearly,  however,  this  position  involves  many  difficulties.  The 
argument  both  for  it  and  for  the  other  'aspect'  is  grounded  on  the 
attempt  to  show  that  by  the  opposite  view,  the  theory  of  external 
relations,  in  accordance  with  which  relatedness  and  independence 
are  quite  compatible,  the  relatedness  of  terms  cannot  be  explained. 
But  this  attempt  fails  ! 2  In  fact,  the  internal  theory  in  either  of 

1  Creative  Evolution,  11  (italics  mine).     Cf.  also,  ibid.,  162,  188,  338-340. 
*  Cf.  my  two  papers,  just  cited. 


THEORIES  OF  RELATIONS  167 

its  aspects  can  be  stated,  argued,  and  known  as  a  theory  only  at 
the  cost  of  using  the  theory  of  external  relations,  and  so,  of  limiting 
itself.  Thus,  in  strict  consistency  with  the  constitutive  theory, 
it  is  impossible  to  find  or  'pick  out/  or  identify  any  entity  as  a 
genuine  term ;  but  the  theory  is  stated,  argued,  and  known  — 
supposedly  as  an  objective  theory  —  and  terms  and  propositions 
are  identified  as  just  those  terms  and  propositions ;  and  principles 
of  proof  are  accepted.  To  recognize  and  identify  any  so-called 
term  is  really  to  tacitly  assert  that,  even  if  the  term  is  related  to 
all  other  terms,  it  can  nevertheless  be  identified  as  just  that  term 
without  identifying  all  its  relations,  and  that  it  is  in  this  respect 
independent  of  these  relations.  Again,  the  assumption  that  the 
theory  is  a  true,  known  theory  presupposes  that,  although  it  is  related 
to  the  knowing,  it  is  independent  of  the  knowing.  Further,  even 
granting  that  it  does  apply  to  some  terms  and  relations,  it  requires 
the  theory  of  external  relations  in  that  it  demands  (1)  terms — 
ultimate  terms  —  to  be  modified,  or  to  constitute  other  terms 
through  relations,  and  (2)  that  these  terms  can  be  got  at  in  some 
way.  The  question,  however,  in  which  we  are  chiefly  interested 
is  not  whether  the  internal  theory  has  no  application,  but  simply 
whether  this  application  can  be  universal.  Evidently  it  can 
not  be,  for  the  simple  reason  that  observation  shows  that  it  does 
not  fit  all  cases  of  relations.  Clearly,  then,  it  is  hazardous 
to  argue,  on  the  basis  of  its  assumed  universality  —  for  all  rela- 
tions between  all  entities,  —  that  analysis  is  impossible.  And  yet 
this  is  exactly  what  is  done  when  everything  is  put  into  a  whole  in 
which  interpenetration  is  made  universal. 

The  fact  is  that  the  theory  of  internal  relations  does  not  have 
a  universal  application.  The  infinite  complexity  of  terms  does 
not  exist,  or  subsist.  Specific  reasons  for  the  incompleteness,  or 
the  inadequacy,  or  even  the  falsifying-character  of  analysis,  — 
specific  reasons  other  than  this  infinitely-interpenetrating,  com- 
plex constitution  of  terms  —  might  conceivably  be  advanced  in 
specific  cases  and  found  to  hold  good.  They  might  hold  good  in 
some  cases,  and  not  in  others ;  perhaps  in  all,  but  possibly  in  none. 


168  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

Which  is  the  case,  only  detailed  empirical  investigation  can  show. 
But  to  hold  on  the  basis  of  the  arbitrary  application  of  the  con- 
stitutive theory  of  relations  that  the  analysis  of  a  whole  is  im- 
possible, is  a  self-limiting,  a  self-contradictory  position. 

My  defense  of  analysis  will  proceed,  then,  along  the  lines  just 
indicated.  The  attacking  party  does  not  and  cannot  hold  consis- 
tently to  the  constitutive  aspect  of  the  theory  of  internal  relations ; 
he  cannot  make  this  theory  universal,  so  as  to  base  his  attack 
on  all  analysis  qua  analysis  on  it.  Nor  can  he  consistently  base 
his  attack  on  its  own  outcome.  My  defense,  then,  will  endeavor 
to  show  that,  dismissing  that  argument  against  analysis  which  is 
derived  from  the  constitutive  theory  —  as  it  really  is  dismissed 
logically  and  involuntarily  by  the  attacking  party  himself  at  a  cer- 
tain point,  —  the  adequacy  and  validity  of  analysis  can  be  demon- 
strated if  both  the  terms  and  the  organizing  relations,  to  whose 
discovery  analysis  also  leads,  are  considered.  The  attack  which 
is  really  to  be  met  is,  then,  not  that  which  is  grounded  on  the 
constitutive  theory  of  relations,  but,  rather,  the  position  that  analy- 
sis leads  to  terms  which  are  the  contradictory  of  the  whole.  This 
position  becomes  the  real  argument  of  the  attacking  party.  But  this 
attack  is  based  on  the  ignoring  of  the  organizing  relations,  or,  in 
some  cases,  on  making  a  false  analysis  —  which  is,  of  course,  easily 
attacked,  or  —  what  is  much  the  same  —  on  a  misstatement  of  the 
actual  results  of  correct  analysis.  In  the  latter  case  the  remedy 
is  easy  to  apply.  Consider  the  analysis  as  it  is  actually  made,  in  its 
correct  form,  and  its  supposed  falsifying  character  disappears.  In 
the  former  case,  consider  the  organizing  relations,  and  again  the  fal- 
sification disappears.  Consider  both  terms  and  relations  and  the 
properties  of  the  whole  which  may  be  left  over,  but  which  are  re- 
vealed by  analysis,  and  the  analysis  becomes  adequate  at  the  same 
time  that  there  is  opportunity  for  that  'creative  evolution/ *  for 
that  creative  synthesis  which  some  of  the  attacking  party  emphasize 
so  strongly,  but  which  is  not  dependent,  for  its  acceptance,  upon  the 
validity  of  their  attack. 

1  Cf.  Bergson,  op.  cit.,  217,  el  passim. 


THE  SECOND   TYPE  OF  WHOLE  169 

Enough  has  been  presented  to  show  what  our  conclusions  must 
be  with  reference  both  to  the  first  kind  or  type  of  whole,  the  aggre- 
gate or  collection,  and  to  the  analysis  with  which  the  enumera- 
tion of  the  parts  of  such  wholes  is  identical.  This  analysis  stands 
as  perfectly  valid.  No  argument  other  than  that  one  which  is 
formed  purely  speculatively  and  by  analogy,  and  which  is  self- 
refuting,  can  be  advanced  to  show  either  its  intrinsically  falsify- 
ing or  inaccurate  character.  There  is  no  strictly  empirical  argu- 
ment which  leads  to  these  conclusions.  But  further,  just  as  no 
strictly  empirical  basis  is  found  for  applying  either  aspect  of  the 
theory  of  internal  relations  to  the  parts  of  a  collection,  so  there  is 
no  empirical  basis  for  applying  either  of  these  aspects  to  the  cog- 
nitive situation  which  is  involved  in  the  act  of  enumerating,  and 
of  analyzing.  Rather,  the  empirical  evidence  is  the  other  way, 
namely,  that  the  theory  of  external  relations  applies  to  this  situa- 
tion.1 Then  there  is  no  opportunity  for  accepting  the  analysis 
as  valid,  as  analysis,  and  yet  of  interpreting  it  from  some  non- 
realistic  standpoint.  Our  conclusion  is,  therefore,  that  this  first 
type  of  analysis  stands  as  valid  qua  analysis,  and  that  also  it  is 
to  be  interpreted  only  realistically. 

Ill 

THE     SECOND    TYPE    OF    WHOLE     (SPACE,     TIME,      ETC.)     AND    ITS 

ANALYSIS 

THAT  the  conclusion  just  reached  for  the  first  type  must  be 
accepted  for  the  analysis  of  the  other  kinds  of  wholes  is  the  posi- 
tion also  held  by  the  realist.  But  this  must  be  demonstrated 
in  detail  for  each  kind.  We  proceed,  then,  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  second  type.  In  wholes  of  this  type  there  are  parts, 
revealed  by  analysis,  all  of  which,  in  any  one  whole,  are  similar 
in  at  least  one,  possibly  in  many  respects,  and  are  related  by  one  or 
more  common  relations  other  than  that  of  numerical  conjunction. 

1  This  volume,  Introduction. 


170  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

Now  it  is  against  certain  specific  types  of  the  analysis  of  wholes 
of  this  second  type,  especially  against  their  formal  analysis,  that 
the  attack  is  especially  directed,  in  order  to  furnish,  it  is  held,  a 
basis  for  the  (erroneous)  generalization  that  all  analysis  is  false. 
For,  in  the  case  of  at  least  certain  specific  types  of  analysis  here, 
the  terms  to  which  analysis  leads,  if  attention  be  directed  exclu- 
sively to  them  and  the  organizing  relations  be  ignored,  can  be  made 
to  seem  to  be  the  contradictory-opposite  of  the  whole  which  is 
analyzed.  This  contradictory  character  of  the  parts  is  sometimes 
connected,  though  erroneously,  with  the  application  of  the  con- 
stitutive theory  of  relations  to  the  whole  which  is  analyzed.1 
However,  that  there  is  no  empirical  reason  for  applying  this  theory 
to  these  wholes,  and  that  analysis  does  not  lead  to  contradictions, 
if  its  results  are  stated  accurately  and  justice  is  done  it,  will  be 
demonstrated  in  what  follows. 

The  wholes  of  this  second  type  are,  as  wholes,  classes,  or  assem- 
blages of  similar  individuals;  they  are  designated  by  so-called 
universals,  by  generic  and  abstract  terms,  terms  with  an  exten- 
sion and  an  intension.  Examples  of  such  wholes,  so  designated, 
are  carbon,  American,  even  integer,  etc.  The  class  as  many  is 
formed  by  the  terms  composing  it.  The  terms  themselves  may 
be  certain  other  kinds  of  wholes,  such  as  organic  wholes,  but  they 
are  not  classes,  for  that  would  give  us  the  third  type.  The  analy- 
sis which  leads  to  the  discovery  of  the  parts  may  be  either  ex- 
perimental or  formal,  or  both.  For  example,  in  the  case  of  dis- 
covering the  atoms  of  any  element,  or  of  the  atomic  theory  as 
applied  to  any  element,  the  analysis  is,  in  part  at  least,  experi- 
mental ;  perhaps  in  certain  cases  it  is  purely  so,  while  in  others, 
such  as  that  of  discovering  points,  instants,  irrational  numbers, 
derivatives,  etc.,  it  is  formal.  Formal  also  —  and  this  is  an  im- 
portant example  —  is  the  analysis  of  those  changes,  either  of.  posi- 
tion or  of  state,  in  which  the  terms  are  identical  with  the  deriva- 
tives, -^  's,  of  certain  entities  with  respect  to  time. 
ax 

1  See  the  preceding  section. 


THE  MODEL  ATTACK  171 

The  actual  analyses  which  are  attacked,  are,  in  the  order  in  which 
analysis  shows  they  should  be  arranged  according  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  logical  priority,1  those  of  number,  space,  time,  change,  mo- 
tion, and  change  of  state.  Here,  as  with  the  first  type  of  whole, 
that  attack  which  is  based  on  the  argument  (Bradley 's),  that  any 
and  all  diversity  and  so  any  and  all  relations  of  any  and  all  terms 
are  self-contradictory,  will  not  again  be  replied  to,  nor  will  certain 
other  positions,  already  dismissed.  So  also  that  attack  which  is 
based  on  the  arbitrary  application  of  the  constitutive  theory  of 
relations  will  not  be  considered,  for  it  is  not  made  directly  against 
the  analysis  of  this  kind  of  whole  —  except  by  analogy.  Only 
that  attack  which  is  grounded  on  the  supposed  direct  contradiction 
between  the  terms  revealed  by  analysis  and  the  whole  will  concern 
us  here.  The  model  for  this  attack  is  really,  in  every  case,  I 
think,  the  specific  attack  on  the  analysis  of  motion,  and  this  is 
in  its  logic  as  old  as  Zeno.  Briefly,  this  model  attack  goes  as  fol- 
lows :  Motion  is  given  as  a  whole,  to  immediate  experience.  Its 
chief  character  as  a  whole  is  that  it  is  continuous  change  —  of  the 
position  of  a  body,  in  time.  In  accordance  with  the  theory  of 
constitutive  relations  it  might  be  held,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  is 
held  by  Bergson,  that  what  the  analyst  would  attempt  to  distin- 
guish as  the  body,  the  time,  and  the  positions,  respectively,  are 
fused  and  interpenetrated  so  as  to  form  one  whole.  This  is  Berg- 
son's  doctrine  of  duration.2  But  it  does  not  enter  this  model  at- 
tack which  we  are  now  considering,  and  which  Bergson  also  uses. 
This  is  constructed  by  surreptitiously  granting  time  to  be  the  in- 
dependent variable  in  the  usual  sense.  Then  the  attack  on  the 
analysis  of  motion  follows.  Analysis  —  so  this  model  attack  goes 
—  breaks  space  up  into  points,  time  into  instants,  and  then  makes 
motion  consist  of  rests.  The  moving  body  is  in  or  at  a  point  at 
each  instant,  and  this  is  interpreted  as  rest.  But  rest  is  the  con- 

1  See  this  essay,  205. 

*  Cf.  Matter  and  Memory  (Paul  and  Palmer,  trans.),  1911,  and  Creative  Evolution 
9-10,  46,  201,  338-346,  et  passim.  Bergson's  doctrine  of  '  duration,'  as  an  attack  on 
analysis,  is  examined  later  in  this  essay,  212. 


172  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

tradictory  of  motion.  Therefore  does  the  analysis  falsify.  It 
makes  the  originally  given  continuous  entity,  motion,  a  discon- 
tinuous set  of  its  own  contradictories,  rests.  Each  rest  is  thought 
by  itself,  in  fact  when  we  think  motion,  intellectualize  it,  we  make 
it  rests.  Each  rest  is  thought  of  as  'external'  to  the  others  — 
as  just  that  rest,  identical  with  itself,  unchangeable,  and  so  the 
very  contradictory  of  a  specific  kind  of  change  —  motion.  Each 
rest  is  inert,  and  the  various  rests  are  external  to  and  exclusive 
of  one  another,  and  so  are  discontinuous  with  one  another  —  at 
least  so  the  argument  goes.  On  the  basis,  now,  of  this  model  at- 
tack, the  conclusion  is  reached,  that  not  merely  does  this  specific 
analysis  falsify,  but  that,  quite  analogously,  all  analysis '  spatializes/ 
works  in  terms  of  inertia,  of  geometry,  of  statics,  of  immobilities, 
of  discontinuous  entities,  etc.  (surely  a  curious  jumble  which 
a  more  careful  analysis  would  clarify),  and  so  falsifies  that 
which  everything  is,  namely,  a  universal  Becoming.1  But  it  is 
clear  that  this  model  attack  does  not  do  justice  to  the  actual  analy- 
sis against  which  it  is  directed,  if,  indeed,  it  states  this  correctly. 
Clearly,  it  considers  only  the  terms,  and  ignores  the  organizing 
relations.  But  worse  than  this,  it  misstates  the  terms ;  it  sets  up 
a  false  analysis,  only  to  knock  it  down  —  always  an  easy  task. 
For  the  analysis  of  motion,  stated  correctly,  does  not  lead  to  rests! 
If  in  this  case,  then,  if  in  this  model  attack,  justice  is  not  rendered 
analysis,  and  yet  if  the  attacking  party  generalizes  from  this 
model,  does  it  not  suggest  that  his  entire  attack  is  seriously 
vitiated?  My  defense  will  confirm  this  suggestion. 

The  first  kind  of  analysis  which  I  shall  thus  examine  is  arith- 
metical analysis,  as  it  is  found  in  authoritative  sources,  making  no 
claim  to  originality  other  than  in  the  selection  and  arrangement 
of  results,  and  in  some  of  the  argumentation.2 

1  Bergson  in  numerous  places  in  the  three  works  cited. 

1  Among  the  works  consulted  here  and  in  connection  with  the  sections  on  space, 
time,  and  motion  are :  Pierpont,  J.,  The  Theory  of  Functions  of  Real  Variables, 
1905  ;  Dedekind,  R.,  Essays  on  Number  (Beman,  W.  W.,  trans.)  1901 ;  Young,  The 
Theory  of  Sets  of  Points,  1906 ;  Russell,  Principles  of  Mathematics,  1903. 


ARITHMETICAL  ANALYSIS  173 

1.  Arithmetical  Analysis.  —  Much  analysis  is  intimately  con- 
nected with  arithmetical  analysis,  for  in  this  such  general  and  im- 
portant problems  as  those  of  continuity  and  of  discontinuity,  of 
finitude  and  of  infinity,  etc.,  have  received  their  most  complete 
and  precise  treatment.  Here,  however,  only  such  features  of 
arithmetical  analysis  as  must  be  taken  account  of  in  order  to 
defend  it  and  to  elucidate  certain  other  analyses  will  be  presented. 

A.  Numbers.  —  Modern  arithmetical  analysis  finds  good  reasons 
for  grouping  numbers  into  several  classes ;  there  are  ordinal  and 
cardinal  numbers,  positive  and  negative  numbers,  real  numbers, 
rational  integers  and  fractions,  and  irrationals.     Classifying  these, 
real  number  is  the  genus,  and  real  numbers  are  either  rational  or 
irrational,  and,  in  turn,  the  rationals  are  either  integers  or  frac- 
tions. 

B.  Rational  Positive  Integers.  —  The  rational  positive  integers 
are  the  terms  of  the  series,  1,  2,  3,  4,  .  .  .  n  —  1,  n,  n  +  1. 

Some  of  the  important  characteristics  of  this  series  or  whole 
and  of  its  terms  are : 

1.  It  is  a  series  whose  terms  present  an  objective  order  of 
magnitude,  which  is  to  be  defined  as  a  certain  pair  of  indefinable 
relations,  greater  and  less,  which  are  asymmetrical  and  transitive,1 
each  being  the  converse  of  the  other.     Terms  capable  of  these  re- 
lations are  magnitudes.    Therefore  the  rational  integers  are  magni- 
tudes. 

2.  These  numbers  form  a  series  or  progression  whose  terms  sub- 
sist in  a  certain  order  by  virtue  of  an  asymmetrical  transitive 
relation  such  that,  if  x,  y,  and  z  be  consecutive  integers,  and  x  <  y, 
and  y  <  z,  y  =  x-\-l,  and  z  =  y  +  1,  and  xRy,  yRz  implies  xRz. 
The  specific  generating  and  organizing  relation  is,  then,  in  this 
case,  asymmetrical  and  transitive. 

3.  It  is  a  series  or  progression  which  not  only  lacks  continuity, 
but  is  not  even  dense  or  compact;  that  is,  between  any  two  of  its 
terms  there  is  not  another  term  or  integer.    It  is  thus  discrete  and 

1  For  definition,  see  below. 


174  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

consists  of  terms  which  are  only  next  to  immediately  preceding  or 
successive  terms  —  a  characteristic  which  is  not  found  in  the  arith- 
metical continuum. 

4.  The  series  is  Archimedean;  that  is,  there  is  no  number  a  so 
small  but  that  some  multiple  of  a,  say  na,  is  greater  than  any  pre- 
scribed positive  number  6.1 

5.  The  terms  of  this  series  are  not  existents;  that  is,  they  are 
not  of  necessity  correlated  with  specific  instants  of  time  or  with 
these  and  specific  points  of  space.     This  means  that  they  are  not 
psychological  entities,  although  they  can  be  correlated  with  these. 
Counting  does  not  generate,  but,  rather,  presupposes  them.    Nor  are 
they  physical  entities.     The  assumption  that  they  are  presupposes 
its    contradictory.2     Indeed,    both    psychological    and    physical 
entities  imply  these  numbers,  but  not  conversely.     In  this  sense 
the  latter  are  logically  prior  to  the  former ;  they  subsist  independ- 
ently of  all  existential  entities.3 

6.  Further,  these  numbers  are  neither  spatial  nor  temporal; 
that  is,  they  are  not  terms  either  of  finite  (though  small)  spatial 
extension  in  one  or  more  dimensions,  or  of  temporal  extension,  time. 
The  assumption  that  they  are  this  presupposes  the  contradictory ; 
for,  hi  defining  and  analyzing  such  extension  or  duration,  not  only 
are  elements  of  extension,  points,  which  are  not  extended,  and 
elements  of  time,  instants,  which  are  not  duration,  implied,  but 
also  the  correlation  of  the  numbers  with  these  non-extended  points 
and  instants  is  implied.     Therefore  the  numbers  are  not  extended. 

7.  Thus  these  numbers  are  logically  prior  also  to  both  the  points 
of  space  and  the  instants  of  time.     Instants  and  points  imply  the 
integers,  but  not  conversely.    The  integers,  then,  are  individuals 
or  terms  which  are  external  to  each  other  without  being  spatially 
external.     Externality,   logically,   does  not  have  an*  exclusively 

1  This  feature  is  important  in  connection  with  the  later  discussion  of  velocity 
and  acceleration. 

1  If  they  were  physical,  they  would  be  spatial  and  temporal ;  but  they  are 
neither.  See  6  and  7. 

1  See  Perry,  this  volume. 


TYPES  OF  RELATIONS  175 

spatial  connotation.     Its  ultimate  logical  meaning  is  exclusive  in- 
dividuality. 

C.  Relations.  —  Before  going  further  in  my  statement  of  the 
results  of  arithmetical  analysis,  clarity  must  be  introduced  in  the 
matter  of  relations.  The  term  '  relation '  has  already  been  used,  but 
not  denned.  Modern  analysis  tends  to  show,  however,  that  '  rela- 
tion' is  an  indefinable.  Term,  however,  can  be  defined  as  any 
entity  which  can  stand  in  any  relation,  and  terms  can  be  classified 
as  physical  and  mental  entities,  complexes  and  simples,  existents 
and  subsistents,  classes,  individuals,  and  relations.1  Leaving  're- 
lation' undefined,  however,  analysis  succeeds  in  distinguishing 
and  classifying  relations.  One  of  the  classifications  which  is  im- 
portant for  this  essay  is  that  which  distinguishes  relations  as 
symmetrical  and  asymmetrical,  and  as  transitive  and  intransitive. 

1.  A  relation  is  transitive  if  it  is  such  that  xRy,  yRz  together 
imply  xRz ;  it  is  intransitive  if  this  implication  does  not  hold. 

2.  A  relation  is  symmetrical  if  it  is  such  that  xRy  implies  yRx ;  it 
is  asymmetrical  if  it  is  such  that  xRy  excludes  yRx.     If  xRy,  then  x 
is  referent,  and  y  is  relatum. 

3.  A  relation  is  ordinally  correlating  if  it  is  such  that  it  couples 
every  term  of  a  series  s  with  a  specific  term  of  another  series  s', 
and  vice  versa,  in  the  same  order  in  each.     It  is  merely  correlating 
if  it  couples  any  term  of  the  one  series  with  any  term  of  the  other 
in  any  order.     In  either  case  it  is  one-one. 

4.  A  relation  is  one-one  when,  if  x  differs  from  x',  and  y  from 
y',  there  subsist  xRy  and  x'Ry',  but  not  xRy'  and  x'Ry.2    Motion 
is  a  specific  instance  of  such  a  one-one  correlation  between  points 
and  instants. 

5.  A  relation  is  many-one  if,  x  and  x'  being  different,  xRy  and 
x'Ry  both  subsist.     Rest  is  a  specific  instance  of  a  many-one  cor- 
relation between  many  instants  and  one  point. 

6.  In  these  cases,  moreover,  if  x,  the  referent,  belongs  to  some 

1  Not  as  relating,  but  as  related  in  another  context. 
*  Cf.  Russell,  Principles  of  Mathematics,  113  and  305. 


176  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

class  contained  in  the  domain  of  the  relation,  then  the  relation  de- 
fines y  as  a  function  of  x,  and  the  series  of  x's  forms  the  independent 
variable,  the  'argument,'  and  the  series  of  y's  the  dependent  vari- 
able; that  is,  an  independent  variable  is  constituted  by  a  series  of 
terms  each  of  which  can  be  referent  to  a  certain  relatum.  For  ex- 
ample, time  is  the  independent  variable  in  both  rest  and  motion. 
In  actually  existing  rests  we  have  one  point  correlated  with  many 
instants  through  the  occupation,  by  a  material  particle,  of  that 
point  for  a  finite  time.  In  motion  each  point  is  correlated  with 
one  and  only  one  instant  of  time  through  the  occupation,  by  a 
material  particle,  of  each  point  for  an  instant.  But  this  occupa- 
tion is  not  to  be  interpreted  as  rest. 

7.  There  are  two  theories  of  relations,  known  respectively  as 
the  theories  of  external  and  of  internal  relations.1 

This  presentation  of  the  results  of  analysis  in  the  field  of  the 
integral  numbers  suffices  to  make  clear  what  the  reply  must  be  to 
any  attack  on  this  specific  kind  of  analysis.  Clearly  in  the  case  of 
the  rational  integers  there  is  given  no  whole  which  is  prior  to  the 
parts,  and  which,  as  a  whole,  can  be  contrasted  with  the  parts  to 
prove  the  falsifying  character  of  the  analysis.  The  parts  cannot 
be  shown  to  be  the  contradictory  of  the  whole,  because  there  is 
no  whole  which  is  empirically  given  prior  to  them.  The  only 
whole  is  the  series  or  class  of  individuals  in  a  certain  relation. 
Any  other  kind  of  whole  here  could  be  constructed  only  on  the 
basis  of  arbitrarily  applying  the  theory  of  internal  relations  to  the 
integer  series.  But  this  would  be  a  very  artificial  procedure,  and 
is,  in  fact,  carried  out  by  no  one.  We  may  conclude,  then,  that 
the  analysis  of  the  integer  series,  as  it  has  been  stated  hi  its  essen- 
tial details,  is  quite  sufficient  to  present  the  character  of  that  whole 
and  of  its  analysis,  and  to  refute  that  type  of  attack  which  claims 
that  such  analysis  is  falsification,  that  numbers  are  spatial,  etc. 
In  fact,  this  analysis  offers  no  opportunity  for  the  argument  that 
analysis  leads  to  parts  which  are  the  contradictory  of  the  whole. 

1  This  essay,  Section  II.  Asymmetrical  relations  are  unintelligible  on  any  other 
theory  than  that  of  external  relations.  See  Russell,  ibid.,  XXVI. 


INTEGERS  AND  RATIONAL  FRACTIONS         177 

D.  Rational  Fractions.  —  So  far  as  the  purpose  of  this  essay 
demands  that  the  analysis  which  deals  with  the  rational  fractions 
shall  be  considered,  these  numbers  are  treated  in  the  subsequent 
section  on  the  whole  group  of  rationals.     Suffice  it  to  say,  that, 
leaving  division  and  multiple  undefined,  a  rational  fraction  is  that 
number  which  subsists  by  virtue  of  any  integer  a  being  a  multiple 
of  any  integer  6,  and  which  is  represented  by  the  customary  sym- 
bols a/6  or  a :  6. 

E.  The  Whole  Group  of  Rationals,  both  Integers  and  Fractions.  — 
Analysis  reveals  the  following  important  (for  this  essay)  char- 
acteristics of  this  assemblage  of  rational  integers  and  rational 
fractions. 

1.  The  terms  of  this  assemblage  form  as  many  types  of  series 
as  they  are  objectively  capable  of;   that  is,  there  are  as  many 
orders  among  them  as  there  are  defining  serial  relations  of  which 
the  terms  of  this  assemblage  are  the  field.    The  order  of  magni- 
tude is  one  such  order,  the  so-called  'natural  order.' 

2.  Any  one  of  these  orders  is  a  series  or  progression  whose  terms 
subsist  in  some  specific  order  by  virtue  of  an  asymmetrical  tran- 
sitive relation. 

3.  A  proper  name  can  be  given  to  each  of  the  terms  of  any 
series  of  this  assemblage. 

4.  Any  of  the  series  of  this  assemblage  is  dense  or  compact;  that 
is,  between  any  two  terms  there  is  an  infinite  number  of  terms  of 
the  same  series. 

Definition.  By  an  infinite  number  is  meant  such  a  class,  u, 
that  u  —  1  (class  u')  is  in  one-one  correspondence  with  u ;  u  is 
then  similar  to  a  proper  part,  u',  of  itself. 

5.  By  virtue  of  4  there  is,  in  any  series  of  the  assemblage, 
no  term  immediately  preceding  or  succeeding  any  specific  term ; 
that  is,  no  term  is  next  to  any  other.    Yet.  no  series  of  this  as- 
semblage is  continuous  in  the  strict  sense  of  this  term.    The 
assemblage  is  only  compact.     For  example,  it  does  not  subsist  in 
one-one  correspondence  with  all  the  points  of  a  right  line. 


178  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

6.  The  assemblage  is  Archimedean. 

7.  The  general  concluding  statements  (5,  6,  and  7)  which  were 
made  above  concerning  the  nature  of  the  cardinal  integers,  their 
relation  to  psychical  and  physical  entities,  to  counting,  etc.,  hold 
good  also  for  this  assemblage  and  need  not  be  repeated  here. 

F.  Irrational  and  Real  Numbers.  —  That  there  are  irrationals 
is  discovered  in  the  realization  that  there  is  some  value  for  x, 
whereby,  for  example,  x2  =  2.  This  value  is  found  to  be  neither 
a  rational  integer  nor  a  rational  fraction.  It  belongs  to  that  class 
of  numbers  which  are  called  irrationals.  What  these  numbers  are 
cannot  in  the  nature  of  the  case  be  stated  by  the  proper  names 
which  are  applied  to  the  assemblage  of  rationals,  but  it  is  possible 
to  determine  an  infinite  sequence  of  rational  numbers,  a\,  02,  as  .  .  . 
such  that  each  number,  on,  satisfies  more  nearly  than  the  preceding 
ones  the  conditions  of  the  problem.1 

Irrationals  may  accordingly  be  defined  as  the  limits  of  such 
series  of  rationals  as  have  neither  a  rational  nor  an  infinite  limit, 
a  limit  being  defined  as  follows:  "L  is  the  limit  of  the  sequence 
A  =  (aB)  when  for  each  positive  rational  number  e,  chosen  small 
at  pleasure,  there  subsists  an  index  ra  such  that  I  —  an  <«." 2 

The  importance  of  the  irrational  numbers  rests  in  part  upon 
the  fact  that  only  through  them  is  the  assemblage  of  numbers, 
that  is,  integers,  rational  fractions  and  irrationals,  continuous  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  this  term.  This  is  one  of  the  principal  reasons  why 
the  presentation  of  arithmetical  analysis  has  been  introduced  into 
this  essay.  For  one  of  the  chief  attacks  on  analysis  is  that  which 
holds  that  analysis  falsifies  that  which  is  continuous.  It  is  im- 
portant, then,  to  present  clearly  and  with  precision  that  which 
analysis  shows  the  continuum  to  be.  We  shall  then  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  do  analysis  justice,  and  to  find  out  if  it  really  does  lead  to 
contradictory  parts  and  so  falsify.  The  nature  of  the  number 
continuum  may  be  stated  as  follows: 

Let  t]  be  the  assemblage  of  rational  numbers,  both  integers  and 

»  Cf.  Pierpont,  op.  cit.,  35.  »  Pierpont,  ibid.,  25. 


IRRATIONAL  AND  REAL  NUMBERS  179 

fractions,  in  order  of  magnitude.  This  series  is  denumerable 
and  compact,  as  has  been  seen.  Let  6,  now,  be  the  assemblage 
of  rationals  and  irrationals.  Then  17  belongs  to  0.  ®,  then,  is  of 
such  a  character  that  between  any  two  of  its  terms  there  are  terms 
of  rj}  and  conversely.  Then  the  assemblage  of  numbers  constitut- 
ing 0,  in  order  of  magnitude,  is  the  number  continuum.1  The  fol- 
lowing are  the  attributes  of  this  assemblage : 

1.  Between  any  two  assigned  limits,  say,  0  and  1,  there  are  all 
values  or  numbers. 

2.  The  assemblage  includes  all  its  limits  and  all  its  members 
are  limits.     (See  previous  definition.) 

3.  These  members  or  terms  are  individuals,  infinite  in  number, 
external  to  each  other,  each  different  from  every  other,  and  are 
related  by  an  asymmetrical,  transitive  relation. 

4.  These  individuals  are  not  analyzable  into  new  terms  like  to 
or  different  from  themselves,  although  the  proper  names  by  which 
some  of  them  are  designated  may  be.     They  are  simples,  not 
complexes.    The  assumption  that  they  are  so  analyzable  repeats 
the  problem,  and  is  ultimately  found  to  presuppose  its  contra- 
dictory. 

5.  The  assemblage  is  perfect2  in  that  it  contains  its  first  de- 
rivatives, -^  's,  or  limits.     Every  term  is  a  limit  or  derivative,  and 

dx 

this  is  important  since  thereby  a  one-one  correspondence  subsists 
between  this  series  and  the  points  of  a  graph  representing  motion 
of  uniform  velocity,  or  the  change  of  velocity,  etc.  For  then  each 
term  of  the  assemblage,  between  assigned  finite  limits,  is  the  value 
or  limit  of  a  certain  ratio  or  relation  between,  for  example,  a  cer- 
tain finite  change  of  position  on  the  one  hand  and  a  finite  temporal 
period  on  the  other,  and  these  limits  form  a  continuous  series. 

6.  The  assemblage  is  Archimedean. 

7.  If  «  (any  real  number)  >  0,  there  is  an  infinity  of  rational 
numbers,  also  of  irrationals,  <  «,  and  also  >  a  . 

1  Cantor,  Math.  Annalen,  1895,  46,  481. 

*  Cf.  Pierpont,  op.  cit.,  162  and  168,  and  Russell,  op.  tit.,  291  and  342. 


180  DEFENSE   OF  ANALYSIS 

8.  Between  a,  ft,  any  two  real  numbers,  «  <  ft,  there  is  an 
infinity  of  rational  numbers,  also  of  irrationals.     Then  the  assem- 
blage is  continuous  in  the  strictest  sense  of  this  term,  and  there 
are  no  next  or  consecutive  numbers.     For  assume  that  «,  y  are 
such ;  then  between  them  there  is  an  infinity  of  real  numbers,  and 
a,  y  are  not  consecutive. 

The  further  general  statements  which  have  been  made  with 
reference  to  the  integers  and  the  rationals  may  also  be  made  with 
reference  to  the  assemblage  of  real  numbers.  Thus, 

9.  They  are  not  existents,  but  are  subsistents;  that  is,  they  are 
entities  which  are  quite  independent  of  all  existents,  both  physical 
and  mental,  although  the  converse  proposition  does  not  hold. 
Existents,  and  space,  and  time  imply  them,  but  not  conversely. 
Nor  are  they,  of  course,  spatial  or  temporal  entities.    They  are 
logically  prior  to  space  and  time,  although  they  are  correlated 
with  points  and  instants. 

As  concerns  the  possible  attack,  now,  it  is  with  the  real  num- 
bers as  it  is  with  the  assemblage  of  rationals.  There  is  no  whole 
which  is  given  empirically  either  prior  or  subsequent  to  the  parts 
which  analysis  reveals.  The  only  whole  is  that  which  is  identical 
with  the  class  of  entities  denoted  by  the  concept,  real  number,  and 
which  consists  of  the  individuals  composing  it.  There  is  no  whole 
with  which  the  parts  can  be  contrasted  in  order  to  reveal  a  con- 
tradiction and  so  the  falsifying  character  of  the  analysis.  Then 
there  is  no  opportunity  for  an  attack  on  this  analysis  except  from 
the  standpoint  of  a  whole  which  may  be  constructed  artificially  by 
the  use  of  the  theory  of  internal  relations.1  But  such  a  procedure 
presupposes  the  very  analysis  it  would  invalidate. 

The  entire  character  of  the  assemblage  is  revealed  by  that  analy- 
sis, some  of  whose  mam  features  have  been  presented  above,  and 
which  discloses  not  only  terms,  but  also  relations.  This  analysis 
presents  the  most  exact  definition  of  continuity  extant,  one  which, 
while  it  demands  the  complete  externality  of  terms  and  the  theory 
of  external  relations,  precludes  the  interpretation  of  this  external- 

1  See  this  essay,  Section  II. 


THE  ANALYSIS  OF   SPACE  181 

ity  as  spatial  or  temporal.  The  real  numbers  are  not  spatial  or 
extended,  nor  have  they  space  between  them,  and,  although, 
psychologically,  knowledge  of  them  may  depend  upon  the  knowl- 
edge of  spatial  things,  logically  they  are  not  dependent  on  space. 

2.  The  Analysis  of  Space.  —  We  are  now  in  a  position  to  examine 
understandingly  and  with  precision  some  of  the  important  facts 
concerning  space  which  have  been  revealed  by  modern  analysis. 
These  facts  enable  us  again  to  confute  that  specific  attack  which 
we  have  found  to  be  the  most  formidable.  Reasons  have  already 
been  given  for  excluding  from  consideration  the  other  types  of 
attack,  such  as  the  pragmatic,  and  the  Bradleian.  The  attack 
which  I  am  meeting  proceeds  for  the  most  part  along  the  lines  of 
the  model  presented  on  a  previous  page.1  This  attack,  on  model 
lines,  runs  as  follows :  Space  is  given  empirically  as  a  one-,  or  two-, 
or  three-dimensional  continuous  whole ;  or  it  is  given  as  a  whole 
which  analysis  resolves  into  dimensions.  This  analysis  into  di- 
mensions is,  however,  not  attacked.  Now  a  dimension,  or  a  spatial 
extension  in  one  dimension,  is  analyzed  into  points.  But  a  point  is 
unextended,  it  has  no  dimensions.  It  is  the  contradictory  of  the 
whole,  the  extended  'thing.'  Either,  then,  this  analysis  is  false,  or, 
if  any  analysis  of  the  line  is  to  be  accepted  as  true,  it  must  be  that 
analysis  which  does  not  lead  to  points,  but  to  elements  having  ex- 
tension in  at  least  one  dimension.2  For  to  derive  extension  from 
the  unextended  is  impossible.  Either  no  analysis,  or  only  that 
analysis  which  is  division  and  leads  to  extended  elements  —  though 
these  be  very  small !  This  is  the  dilemma,  and  this  is  the  way  the 
argument  runs. 

Is  the  analyst  in  a  position  to  reply  to  this  attack  effectively, 
and  can  it  be  shown  that  the  attacking  party  does  not  do  justice 
to  the  actual  results  of  analysis,  or  that  he  misstates  these  results, 
or  himself  analyzes  falsely?  The  answer  is  'yes'  in  each  case. 
Let  us  consider  some  of  the  actual  results  of  this  analysis,  noting, 

»171. 

*  Cf.  Kant's  second  antinomy,  and  Zeno's  historical  first  and  fourth  arguments. 


182  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

however,  that  the  question  of  the  objective  or  (Kantian-)  sub- 
jective character  of  space  is  not  here  involved. 

The  modern  general  analysis  of  space  finds  reasons,  first,  for 
distinguishing  three  more  specific  analyses  or  geometries,  pro- 
jective,  descriptive,  and  metrical.1  Yet  all  three  of  these  geome- 
tries agree  in  analyzing  space  into  points;  constructively  they 
are  said  to  assume  the  class-concept,  point.  The  actual  points 
are  the  individuals  which  this  concept  denotes;  they  are  its  ex- 
tension. 

Point  is,  perhaps,  indefinable.  Yet  it  is  found  to  have  all  the 
characteristics  which  the  real  numbers  have,  plus  something  more. 
It  has  a  peculiar  quale  which  can  at  best  be  defined  only  in  terms  of 
that  of  which  it  is  the  element,  namely,  space.  But  that  may  be 
to  define  the  term  in  a  circle  and  to  admit  it  to  be  indefinable 
logically. 

Constructively,  now,  each  of  these  three  geometries  assumes 
two  points.  These  two  points  determine  a  class,  the  straight  line, 
analogously  to  any  two  real  numbers  determining  the  series  of  real 
numbers.  Then  there  are  at  least  three  points,  A,  B,  and  C,  and 
either  A  is  between  B  and  C,  or  B  is  between  A  and  C,  or  C  is  be- 
tween A  and  B.  The  further  assumption  is  made  that  there  is 
one  point  not  of  or  on  any  given  straight  line;  that  is,  that  there  is 
a  fourth  point,  D.  These  four  points  determine  a  class,  the  plane. 
Assume,  next,  a  point  G,  not  of  this  plane.  Then  G  and  any  three 
of  the  class  of  points  which  determine  a  plane  determine  a  space 
of  three  dimensions.  Space,  then,  is  a  class  which  is  defined  by 
its  relation  to  the  class-concept  point.  It  is  the  domain  of  the 
concept,  point,  and  of  a  certain  class  of  relations  holding  between 
points. 

What,  next,  are  some  of  these  relations?  Modern  analysis 
shows  one  of  the  most  important  of  them  to  be  that  which  is  ex- 
pressed by  the  word  between.  The  definition,  giving  the  very 
meaning  and  the  criterion  of  betweenness,  is  as  follows :  "A  term 
y  is  between  two  terms  x  and  z  with  reference  to  a  transitive  asym- 
>  Cf.  Russell,  op.  c&,  XLV-XLVIII. 


THE  ANALYSIS   OF  SPACE  183 

metrical  relation  R  when  xRy  and  yRz."  l  Between,  then,  is  a 
relation  which  determines  an  order  of  sequence  of  the  points  of  a 
straight  line,  of  a  plane,  of  space.  This  relation  receives  a  specific 
and  precise  statement  in  the  following  propositions  which  I  quote 
from  Hilbert's  "Foundations  of  Geometry."2 

1.  If  A,  B,  C  are  points  of  a  straight  line  and  B  lies  between  A 
and  C,  then  B  lies  also  between  C  and  A. 

2.  If  A  and  C  are  two  points  of  a  straight  line,  then  there  exists 
at  least  one  point  B  lying  between  A  and  C  and  at  least  one  point 
D  so  situated  that  C  lies  between  A  and  D. 

3.  Of  any  three  points  situated  on  a  straight  line  there  is  always 
one  and  only  one  which  lies  between  the  other  two. 

4.  Any  four  points  A,  B,  C,  D  of  a  straight  line  can  always  be 
so  arranged  that  B  shall  lie  between  A  and  C  and  also  between  A 
and  D,  and,  furthermore,  so  that  C  shall  lie  between  A  and  D  and 
also  between  B  and  D. 

It  results  from  these  four  propositions  that  between  any  two 
points  of  a  straight  line  there  subsists  an  infinite  number  of  points. 
Then  in  this  respect  the  line  resembles  the  series  of  rational  frac- 
tions, and  also  of  real  numbers.  But  it  is  further  shown  thereby 
that  the  defining  relations  which  relate  the  points  are  similar  to 
those  which  relate  the  integers,  the  rational  fractions,  and  the 
irrationals;  that  is,  they  are  asymmetrical,  transitive  relations. 
Thus,  any  one  of  the  above  propositions  implies  that,  if  x  and  y 
are  any  two  points  of  a  straight  line,  then  xRy  excludes  yRx.  For 
example,  by  2,  if  x  and  y  are  two  points  of  a  line,  then  there  subsists 
a  third  point  z  lying  between  x  and  y,  and  at  least  one  point  q 
such  that  z  is  between  x  and  q.  This  may,  perhaps,  be  more 
readily  seen  if  we  state  the  axiom  of  Archimedes  as  given  by  Hil- 
bert,  "Let  x\  be  any  point  upon  a  straight  line  between  the  arbi- 
trarily chosen  points  x  and  y.  Take  the  points  x2,  z3,  z4,  .  .  .,  so 
that  x\  lies  between  x  and  xz,  x%  between  x\  and  xs,  x3  between  z2 
and  z4,  etc.  Moreover,  let  the  segments,  xx\,  x\x%,  x^x^  x$x\  .  .  ., 

1  Russell,  ibid.,  214. 

*  HUbert,  D.,  (Townsend,  E.  J.,  trans.),  6. 


184  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

be  equal  to  one  another.  Then,  among  this  series  of  points  there 
always  exists  a  certain  point  xn  such  that  y  lies  between  x  and  xn." l 
This  gives  a  definition  of  the  continuity  of  the  line. 

But  further,  if  the  numbers  by  which  we  designate  the  points  of 
the  line  are  the  real  numbers,  and  these  numbers  are  taken  in  their 
order  of  magnitude,  then  the  points  which  they  designate  must  also 
have  this  order.  But  asymmetrical,  transitive  relations  hold  be- 
tween these  numbers  in  this  order.  Therefore  they  hold  between 
the  points. 

The  necessity  of  introducing  the  real  numbers  in  order  to  desig- 
nate all  the  points  of  a  line  is  shown  by  examining,  for  example,  the 
relation  of  the  hypotenuse  of  a  right  isosceles  triangle  to  the  two 
sides.  Let  these,  metrically,  be  of  the  value  1 ;  then  the  hypot- 
enuse =  V2.  But  this  is  an  irrational.  Therefore  some  of  the 
points  of  a  line  are  in  one-one  correspondence  only  with  the  irra- 
tionals. It  is  alone  all  the  real  numbers,  that  is,  the  rationals  and 
the  irrationals,  that  are  in  complete  one-one  correspondence  with 
all  the  points  of  a  line. 

Space,  then,  is  shown  by  analysis  to  have  the  same  kind  of  con- 
tinuity (and  also  infinity)  that  the  real  number  series  has.  But 
its  continuity  is  a  continuity  of  points,  not  of  numbers;  that  is, 
there  is  a  quale  in  the  spatial  element,  the  point,  which  the  num- 
bers lack.  But  there  are  also  common  properties.  The  points, 
like  the  numbers,  are  individuals,  simples,  not  further  divisible 
into  similar  elements,  and  are  logically  external  to  one  another. 
The  defining  relations  are  also  the  same.  They  are  asymmetrical 
and  transitive.  This  logical  externality  of  the  members  of  this 
particular  class  of  individuals  and  the  asymmetrical,  transitive 
relations  holding  between  them  are  space  of  one,  or  two,  or  three 
dimensions,  are  spatial  externality.  Quite  similarly,  time  is  the 
class  of  individuals,  called  instants,  related  asymmetrically  and 
transitively,  external  to  one  another,  and  not  further  divisible  into 
similar  elements.  These  individuals  hi  turn  have  a  quale  different 
from  the  quale  of  the  point. 

lOp.  tit.,  25. 


CONTINUITY  OF  SPACE  185 

Accordingly  the  '  axiom  of  the  continuity '  of  space  may  be  stated, 
in  agreement  with  the  above  and  preceding  discussions,  as  fol- 
lows :  All  points  on  a  line  are  limits  of  rational  points,  and  all 
infinite  series  of  rational  points  have  limits.1  By  this  definition 
all  the  points  of  a  line  form  a  perfect  series ;  for  a  series  is  perfect 

if  all  its  limiting  points  (derivatives,  -^ ) belong  to  it,  and  if  all  its 
\  dxj 

derivatives  are  limits.  But  this  is  the  case  with  the  points  of  a 
line.  A  series  is  continuous,  then,  if  it  is  perfect.  But  the  series 
of  points  is  perfect.  Therefore  it  is  continuous. 

Analysis  shows,  further,  that  descriptive  space  is  in  its  continuity 
like  projective,  and  that  the  above  axiom  satisfies  also  the  con- 
tinuity of  metrical  space.2  In  general,  the  above  results  show  the 
way  in  which  modern  analysis  treats  of  space,  of  some  of  its  char- 
acteristics, of  its  elements.  This  analysis  states  with  clearness 
and  precision  what  space  is,  what  its  continuity  is,  what  terms  and 
relations  are  involved.  Space  or  continuous  spatial  extension  is 
the  domain  of  an  asymmetrical  transitive  relation  between  points. 
The  continuity  and  extension  are  defined  and  determined  by  ele- 
ments and  relations  neither  of  which  are,  strictly  speaking,  con- 
tinuous or  discontinuous,  and,  possibly,  either  extended  or  unex- 
tended.3  Analysis  shows  that  the  fundamental  relations  essential 
to  geometry  do  not  hold  between  spatially  divisible  terms,  such  as 
lines,  planes,  and  volumes,  but  only  between  spatially  indivisible 
points.  It  shows  that  however  many  parts  a  dimension  be  divided 
into,  the  parts  are  still  dimensions  or  stretches  with  which  many 
numbers  are  in  one-one  correspondence.  But  there  are  single 
numbers,  simples.  Then,  corresponding  to  these,  there  must  be 
single  points,  simples,  not  stretches,  and  not  further  analyzable 
into  elements  of  the  same  kind.  Yet  the  continuity  of  space  is 
defined  and  determined  not  alone  by  these  elements,  but  also  by 

1  Cantor,  G.,  Ada  Mathematica,  2,  341-344  and  405  et  passim. 
»  Russell,  op.  tit.,  XLV-XLVIII. 

1  They  might  be  eaid  to  be  non-extended,  even  as  inanimate  objects  are  non- 
moral. 


186  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

the  defining  relations  between  them.  Let  these  be  the  premises. 
Then  from  them,  from  the  assumption  of  points  in  a  certain  rela- 
tion, a  space  empirically  indistinguishable  from  the  space  in  which 
we  live  can  be  constructed.  Observed  facts  are  explained  by  our 
premises.  Thus  the  latter  have  empirical  confirmation. 

These  are  the  results  which  are  attacked  by  the  critic  of  analy- 
sis —  by  him  who  would  establish  its  falsifying  character.  When 
justice  is  done  them,  when  the  actual  analysis  is  considered,  can 
the  attack  succeed? 

The  attack  is  made  along  two  lines,  but  in  both  cases  it  follows 
the  model  previously  presented.  In  one  attack  the  continuity- 
feature  of  space  is  selected  as  the  fulcrum  of  the  argument.  Space, 
the  attacking  party  holds,  is  given  empirically  by  intuition,  or  some 
such  mode  of  direct  approach,  as  a  unitary  continuous  whole. 
But  analysis  leads  to  terms  or  to  parts  of  space  which  are  discrete 
from  one  another.  Therefore  analysis  leads  from  continuity  to 
discontinuity.  It  leads  to  the  contradictory  of  the  thing  analyzed. 
Therefore  it  falsifies. 

The  other  attack  proceeds  somewhat  differently.  The  analy- 
sis of  space,  it  holds,  leads  to  terms  which  are  not  spatial ;  it  leads 
from  the  extended,  the  dimensional,  to  the  unextended,  the  'un- 
dimensional.'  Then,  again,  it  leads  from  the  positive  term  to  the 
contradictory.  Therefore  it  falsifies. 

Manifestly,  in  both  cases,  the  attacking  party  considers  only  the 
terms  and  quite  ignores  the  relations  which  analysis  also  discovers. 
Clearly  he  does  not  do  analysis  justice.  Indeed,  he  may  not  even 
be  defining  the  terms  correctly  in  asserting  them  to  be  unextended 
and  undimensional.  They  may  be  simply  non-dimensional. 

Can  these  attacks  be  repulsed  ?  The  answer  can  again  be  only 
affirmative,  and,  in  fact,  has  already  been  given.  The  first  requisite 
condition  for  determining  whether  analysis  is  intrinsically  false  or 
not,  is  that  justice  shall  be  done  the  analysis.  Then,  not  only 
terms,  but  also  organizing  relations  must  be  considered,  and  false 
analyses  must  not  be  set  up,  only  to  be  knocked  down.  Observing 
this  condition,  we  may  reply  to  the  first  attack  as  follows : 


ATTACK  AND  REPLY  187 

In  the  case  of  space,  as  distinct  from  the  numbers,  there  does 
seem  to  be  a  whole  which  is  given  psychologically,  to  any  individual 
consciousness,  prior  to  the  parts  which  analysis  reveals,  and  this 
whole  may  be  said  roughly  to  be  continuous  and  infinite,  etc.  But 
to  neither  of  these  terms  is  therewith  an  exact  meaning  given. 
Analysis  endeavors  among  other  things  to  give  just  this  requisite 
exactness,  to  make  precise  that  which  is  otherwise  a  vague  mass 
of  confusion.  The  first  attack  selects  division  as  that  phase  of 
analysis  which  it  would  impugn.  Division  is  held,  or  made  to 
mean  discreteness.  But  this  is  just  what  the  analyst  finds  it  does 
not  mean.  Division  in  the  usual,  in  fact  in  any  strict  sense  of  the 
term,  does  not  lead  to  entities  which  differ  from  the  entity  divided, 
whether  this  be  space  or  time,  or  space  traversed  in  time,  or  what- 
not.1 The  parts  resulting  are  in  turn  spaces,  or  times,  or  motions, 
and  never  points,  or  instants,  or  velocities.  Though  very  small, 
they  are  always  finite  quantities ;  they  are  stretches,  and  never 
limits.  But  the  very  condition  for  there  being  such  a  division,  for 
there  being  such  a  'thing'  as  the  so-called  discreteness  which  the 
attacking  party  talks  about,  is  that  which  is  really  identical  with 
continuity  itself.  Clearly  that  which  might  determine  the  dis- 
creteness of  two  segments  of  a  line  need  not  itself  be  a  segment. 
It  could  be  a  point.  But  that  every  point  of  a  line  generates  a 
'partition'  of  the  line,  and  that  every  'partition'  is  generated  by 
a  point  is  precisely  Dedekind's  definition  of  continuity.2  The 
same  'partition'  definition  holds  also,  of  course,  for  the  numbers. 
Further,  the  point  is  not  a  third  entity,  which,  film-like,  belongs 
to  neither  segment,  but  it  belongs  to  either  one  or  the  other  of  the 
two  segments  which  it  determines,  at  the  same  time  that  the  line 
is  continuous.  "Thus, "  by  Dedekind's  definition,  " if  all  the  points 
of  a  line  be  divided  into  two  classes  of  which  one  precedes  the  other, 

1  Cf.  this  section,  on  Motion. 

1  Dedekind,  Essays  on  Number,  20.  IV.  "If  the  system  R  of  all  real  numbers 
breaks  up  into  two  classes  U\,  t/a  such  that  every  number  ai  of  the  class  U\  is  lesa 
than  every  number  02  of  the  class  Us,  then  there  exists  one  and  only  one  number  a 
by  which  this  separation  is  produced."  Cf.  Pierpont,  op.  cit.,  78-79,  and  Russell, 
op.  cit.,  438. 


188  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

then  either  the  first  class  has  a  last  term,  or  the  last  a  first,  but  both 
do  not  happen."1  We  must  conclude,  therefore,  that  this  first 
attack  on  the  analysis  of  space,  which  makes  analysis  lead  from 
continuity  to  discreteness,  fails  of  its  purpose.  The  discreteness 
which  it  would  introduce  proves  to  be  only  another  definition  for 
the  continuity  which  the  discreteness  is  supposed  to  displace. 

The  second  attack  on  the  analysis  of  space  is  based  on  the  con- 
tradiction which  is  supposed  to  hold  between  the  elements  to 
which  analysis  leads  and  the  original  entity  analyzed.  The  entity 
analyzed  is  extension  in  one  or  more  dimensions.  The  element 
discovered  by  analysis  is  unextended.  Thence  the  contradiction, 
and  the  falsifying  character  of  the  analysis  !  Or,  it  is  maintained, 
the  entity  analyzed  is  continuous.  But  the  elements  discovered, 
the  points,  are  individual,  and  so,  separate,  discrete,  discontinuous 
from  one  another.  Manifestly  neither  of  these  arguments  does 
justice  to  the  actual  analysis.  Let  not  only  the  terms,  but  also 
the  defining  relations  be  considered,  and  the  attack  in  each  case 
is  nullified.  Both  cases  may  be  taken  together.  It  is  con- 
tinuous extension  which  is  to  be  analyzed.  And  analysis  shows 
that  this  is  identical  with  a  series  of  points,  each  individual,  and 
so  logically  external  to  the  others,  related  asymmetrically  and 
transitively.  Extension  is  just  this,  a  series  of  points,  with  each 
point  distinct  from  every  other,  and  any  two,  A  and  B,  implying 
a  third,  C,  beyond  B,  so  that  B  is  between  A  and  C.  What  else 
could  spatial  extension  be  than  just  this  field  of  an  asymmetrical 
transitive  relation  holding  between  points?  And  spatial  con- 
tinuity is  just  this  too,  a  series  of  points  related  in  such  a  way  that 
between  any  two  there  is  an  infinite  number  of  points  in  one-one 
correspondence  with  all  the  real  numbers.  To  grant  the  second 
aspect  of  the  attack,  that  the  points  are  individual  and  discrete, 
either  nullifies  the  attack  by  making  this  very  discreteness  identi- 
cal with  continuity  as  above  defined,  or  repeats  the  problem,  if  the 
discreteness  of  the  points  is  interpreted  to  mean  extension  between 
them.  For  then  this  extension  must  be  analyzed,  and  sooner  or 

1  Russell,  loc.  cit.     Cf.  Dedekind,  op.  cit.,  11. 


CONCLUSION  ON  SPACE  189 

later  the  recognition  will  come  that  this  involves  points  related  in 
a  certain  way,  and  that  there  is  no  escape  from  this  —  that  points 
so  related  are  one-dimensional  continuous  extension. 

We  may  conclude  in  general,  therefore,  that  the  modern  analysis 
of  space  stands  quite  unimpugned  by  the  type  of  attack  considered 
in  this  essay,  and  also,  since  arguments  have  been  presented  else- 
where which  are  held  to  refute  other  readjustments  and  reinter- 
pretations,  that  its  results  must  be  interpreted  realistically. 
Points  and  the  specific  relations  between  them  subsist  quite  in- 
dependently of  the  knowing  or  discovery  of  them.  Only  one  type 
of  attack  has  any  plausibility  at  all,  namely,  that  which  makes 
analysis  lead  to  the  contradictory  of  the  thing  analyzed.  But  this 
attack  does  not  do  justice  to  the  actual  analysis  made.  It  selects 
the  terms,  the  points,  and  neglects  the  relations.  Consider  these, 
as  well  as  the  terms,  and  the  contradiction  disappears,  and  the 
attack  is  invalidated.  'Analysis  may  lead  to  terms  which  are  dif- 
ferent from  the  thing  analyzed,  and  this  difference  can  always  be 
thrown  into  the  form  of  a  contradiction.1  If  A  differs  from  B,  B 
can  be  called  non-A.  Were  this  fact  damning,  it  would  damn  the 
very  method  by  which  it  is  discovered.  But  that  it  is  not  damn- 
ing, and  that  distinctions  can  be  made  which,  though  convertible 
into  contradictory  form,  are  nevertheless  valid,  is  presupposed, 
if  any  analysis  whatsoever  is  made.  But  the  attacking  party  al- 
ways uses  analysis.  If  not  damning  in  one  place,  then  it  is  not  in 
another,  until  evidence  to  the  contrary  be  adduced.  And  so  with 
the  analysis  of  space.  Let  its  elements  be  points,  different  from 
spatial  extension.  But  consider  also  the  relations.  Then  space  is, 
both  in  its  continuity  and  its  extension,  the  assemblage  of  these 
elements  related  asymmetrically  and  transitively,  and  the  analysis 
is  adequate.  Space  is  just  this  assemblage.  There  is  nothing  left 
over,  as  characterizing  the  whole,  which  is  not  these  elements  in 
these  relations.2 

1  Cf.  Holt,  this  volume. 

2  This  outcome  and  the  considerations  leading  up  to  it  solve  Kant's  second 
antinomy. 


190  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

3.  The  Analysis  of  Time.  —  At  this  point  I  shall  consider  only 
those  aspects  of  the  analysis  of  time  which  might  be  subjected  to 
the  typical  attack  by  means  of  the  argument  from  contradiction. 
There  is  another  attack  which  I  shall  consider  later,  that,  namely, 
which  is  identical  with  the  argument  that  the  analysis  of  time  is 
contradictory  to  its  very  nature  as  lived,  —  as  'duration.'1  This 
last  argument  is  based  on  the  constitutive  theory  of  relations. 
But  at  this  point  we  are  concerned  only  with  the  attack  which  is 
directed  against  an  analysis  proceeding  along  quite  the  same  lines 
as  does  the  analysis  of  space  just  presented.  Since  the  two  analyses 
have  much  in  common,  except  that  here  we  have  to  do  with  a  one- 
dimensional  manifold  of  instants,  the  statement  of  the  results  of 
this  modern  analysis  of  time  may  be  made  very  brief.  It  is  as- 
sumed here,  since  it  is  justified  later,  that  the  analytical  separation 
of  time  from  things  in  time,  like  the  analytical  separation  of  space 
from  things  in  space,  is  valid. 

Modern  analysis  shows  that  time  as  such  is  of  the  following 
character : 

1.  Time  is  a  one-dimensional  infinite  and  continuous  manifold 
of  individuals,  called  instants,  related  by  an  asymmetrical  transi- 
tive relation. 

2.  Instant    is,    perhaps,    indefinable.     Instants    have    all    the 
characteristics  which  the  real  numbers  have,  and  more  besides. 
An  instant  has  or  is  a  peculiar  quale  which  is  different  from  the 
point  quale,  and  is  an  'addition'  to  the  real  number  quale.    This 
peculiar  quale  can  at  best  be  defined  only  in  terms  of  that  of  which 
it  is  the  element,  namely,  time. 

3.  The  element  of  space  is  the  point,  and  space  is  either  a  one-, 
or  a  two-,  or  a  three-,  or  an  n-dimensional  series  of  points.    The 
reason  for  so  saying  is,  perhaps,  that  empirical  space  seems  to  be 
three-dimensional.     So,  empirically,  time  seems  to  be  given  as 
only  one-dimensional,  but  logically  time  may  be,  like  space,  n- 
dimensional. 

4.  A  one-dimensional  manifold  or  series  may  be  defined  as 

1  See  this  bection,  on  Dynamics  and  Duration. 


THE  ANALYSIS  OF  TIME  191 

follows :  Let  there  be  a  transitive  asymmetrical  relation  R  and 
a  collection  of  terms  any  two  of  which  are  such  that  either  xRy  or 
yRx.  Then,  since  by  definition  R  is  asymmetrical,  xRy  is  differ- 
ent from  and  excludes  yRx ;  and,  since  R  is  transitive,  xRy,  yRz 
imply  xRz.  Then  R,  the  converse  relation,  is  also  asymmetrical 
and  transitive.  It  results  that  any  three  terms  of  the  series  are 
such  that  one  is  between  the  other  two,  and  the  whole  collection  is 
a  single  series. 

5.  A  series  of  two  dimensions  subsists,  if  every  term  u\  of  a 
series  of  which  x,  y,  and  z  are  some  terms,  is  itself  an  asymmetri- 
cal transitive  relation  which  generates  a  series.     The  class  Uz  of 
terms  forming  the  field  of  all  the  relations  in  the  series  generated 
by  R  is  a  two-dimensional  series.    A  series  of  three-dimensions 
subsists  if  each  term  of  u2  is  itself  an  asymmetrical    transitive 
relation  generating  a  series.     In  quite  a  similar  way  a  series  of  any 
number  of  dimensions  can  be  defined.1 

6.  Time,  therefore,  for  empirical,  though  not  for  logical  reasons, 
may  be  said  to  be  a  one-dimensional  series  of  instants. 

7.  The  time  series,  then,  has  the  same  properties  as  has  the  one- 
dimensional  space  series  with  the  difference  that  in  the  former  the 
terms  are  points,  in  the  latter  instants.     Accordingly  the  prop- 
ositions2 which  were  made  above   concerning  the  space   series 
hold  good  of  the  time  series,  if  '  instant '  be  substituted  for  '  point.' 

8.  It  results  from  the  four  propositions  thus  made,  that  between 
any  two  instants  there  subsists  an  infinite  number  of  instants.     In 
this  respect,  then,  the  time  series  is  like  the  series  of  real  numbers 
and  the  space  series.    A  one-one  correspondence  subsists  between 
the  real  numbers,  the  instants  of  time,  and  the  points  of  space. 

9.  In  just  this  respect,  therefore,  and  as  thus  defined,  time  is 
continuous.     It  is  continuous  in  the  same  sense  as  is  the  number 
continuum  formed  by  the  real  numbers  in  their  natural  order;  that 
is,  it  is  continuous  in  the  most  precise  meaning  of  the  term  con- 
tinuity.    But  such  continuity  subsists  only  by  virtue  of  both  terms 
and  relations.    The  terms,  instants,  are  individuals,  simples,  not 

1  Cf.  Russell,  op.  cti.,  374-378.  'This  section,  183. 


192  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

further  analyzable  into  terms  of  the  same  kind,  and  external  (not 
spatially)  to  one  another.  This  logical  externality  is  identical,  on 
the  one  hand,  with  the  distinctness  of  the  terms,  and  on  the  other 
with  the  property  that,  if  A  and  C  are  two  instants  of  time, 
there  subsists  at  least  one  instant  B  between  A  and  C,  and  also  at 
least  one  instant  D,  so  that  C  is  between  A  and  D ;  briefly,  there 
is  another  instant  D  '  beyond '  C. 

Time,  or  continuous  temporal  extension,  is,  therefore,  the  domain 
of  an  asymmetrical  transitive  relation,  the  terms  of  which  are  in- 
stants. The  instants  are  themselves  neither  continuous  nor  dis- 
continuous. 

The  attack  on  the  analysis  of  time,  so  far  as  it  follows  the 
model  attack,  fails  for  the  same  reason  that  it  fails  when  directed 
against  the  analysis  of  space.  And  the  attack  with  which  we  are  here 
concerned  does  follow  this  model  attack.  It  grants  that  time  may 
be  validly  distinguished  from  things  in  time,1  but  holds  that  even 
so  it  is  given  empirically,  by  intuition,*etc.,  as  a  unitary  continuous 
whole.  Then  it  further  holds  that  the  analysis  of  this  whole  leads 
either  to  instants  which,  as  not  durations  or  time  extension,  are 
the  contradictory  of  the  whole,  or  to  instants  discrete  and  dis- 
continuous from  one  another,  which  discreteness  is  contradictory 
to  the  continuous  character  of  the  whole. 

Can  this  argument  be  refuted  ?  Yes,  if  justice  be  rendered  the 
actual  analysis,  and  the  relations  as  well  as  the  terms  be  considered. 
The  terms  by  themselves  may  seem  to  be  the  contradictory  of  the 
originally  given  whole.  But  actually  they  are  terms  in  a  certain 
relation.  As  terms  in  this  relation,  they  present  no  contradiction 
with  the  properties  of  the  whole.  In  fact,  only  through  them  as 
terms  in  relation  is  the  whole  what  it  is,  —  continuous,  infinite, 
extended  —  unless  these  attributes  be  left  wholly  vague  and 
undefined.  The  principle  of  indirect  proof  may  be  used  to  show 
this.  Thus,  to  assume  that  the  instants  are  temporally  extended, 
or  that  there  is  temporal  extension  between  them,  or  both, 

i  Cf.,  e.g.,  Bergson,  Creative  Evolution,  46  and  21,  22,  37,  39,  321-337,  341-345 
and  various  other  places. 


ATTACK  AND  REPLY  193 

but  repeats  the  problem  and  so  presents  only  a  new  necessity  for 
analysis,  and  reveals  the  fact  that  ultimately  temporally  non-ex- 
tended terms,  instants,  in  an  asymmetrical  transitive  relation, 
are  presupposed.  Time  is  just  these  terms  in  this  relation,  and 
there  is  no  characteristic  of  the  empirically  given  whole  over  and 
above  what  these  terms  in  relation  are. 

Likewise  the  attack  on  the  second  basis  fails.  The  discreteness 
which  analysis  or  division  is  held  to  introduce  is  exactly  the  kind 
of  discreteness  which  is  identical  with  continuity,  namely,  that 
whereby  the  formal  'partition'  of  a  series  by  any  term  is  made.1 
It  is  not  the  discreteness  of  the  integers,  in  which  certain  terms 
are  next  to  certain  others,  with  no  terms  between,  but  it  is  the 
discreteness  of  the  real  numbers,  by  which  an  infinite  number  of 
terms  is  between  any  two  and  any  term  makes  a  'partition.' 
That  is,  the  very  condition  for  that  formal  division  into  segments 
which  the  attacking  party  holds  to  mean  the  introduction  of 
discreteness  into  that  which  is  not  discrete,  is  that  which  makes  or 
is  continuity  in  the  precise  and  exact  sense  of  the  term. 

We  may  conclude  that  the  attack  on  the  analysis  of  time 
qua  time  fails  of  its  purpose  completely.  Other  attacks,  such 
as  the  pragmatic  and  the  Bradleian  are  again  excluded  from 
consideration  here  for  reasons  stated  elsewhere.  The  realistic 
interpretation  of  the  results  of  the  analysis  of  time  will  stand, 
therefore,  if  no  other  attack  can  be  brought  against  it  and  succeed. 
Phenomenalism  and  idealism  make  such  an  attack  or  interpretation, 
of  course,  but  these  are  refuted  by  the  arguments  for  the  general 
realistic  position.  There  is  another  specific  attack,  involved  in 
Bergson's  doctrine  of  duration,  but  this,  I  shall  presently  show, 
presupposes  the  very  realistic  interpretation  which  it  is  intended 
to  displace.2 

4-  Motion  and  its  Analysis.3  —  The  attack  on  the  modern  an- 

1  This  section,  187.  *  This  section,  on  Dynamics  and  Duration. 

3  In  this  section  I  am  largely  indebted  to  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell's  analysis  of 
motion,  contained  in  Chap.  LIV  of  his  Principles,  though  I  depart  from  his  views  in 
certain  essentials. 
O 


194  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

alysis  of  motion  proceeds  as  follows :  First,  it  is  held  that  any 
finite  motion  is  given  as  a  continuous  whole,  definable  only  in  terms 
of  itself.  The  determination  of  any  specific  instance  of  motion  as 
finite  may  be  arbitrary,  or  it  may  not  be.  If  it  is,  then  it  is 
held  to  be  continuous  over  or  through  the  arbitrarily  set  limits, 
and  to  be  a  unitary  whole,  unanalyzable  and  indivisible1  in  its 
character  as  motion,  through  all  such  limits.  However,  various 
aspects  of  the  motion,  it  is  admitted  even  by  the  attacking 
party,  can  be  distinguished  and  determined  by  analysis,  by 
science.  Its  direction  or  path,  its  velocity  or  rate,  its  constancy 
or  its  change  of  rate,  are  such  aspects.  The  attack  is  not 
directed  against  the  analysis  which  discovers  these  distinctions. 
Now  the  argument  of  the  attack  is  as  old  as  Zeno,  and  yet  it  is 
advanced  against  analysis  by  Bergson,2  and  with  the  seem- 
ingly willful  ignoring  of  the  advance  which  modern  analysis  has 
made  since  Zeno.  Actual  motion  as  experienced  is  a  continuous 
whole  between  either  arbitrary  or  natural  limits  A  and  B.  It 
requires  a  certain  time,  and  in  that  time  a  material  particle  or  body 
travels  from  A  to  B.  It  involves  space,  then,  as  well  as  time. 
But  the  space  and  the  time  are  composed  of  points  and  of  instants 
respectively.  Then  the  particle  or  its  center  is  in  or  at  a  point  at 
each  instant.  But  this  means  that  it  is  at  rest  at  each  instant. 
Rest,  however,  is  the  contradictory-opposite  of  motion.  Then 
that  analysis  which  leads  from  motion,  the  whole,  to  rests,  the 
parts,  falsifies.  It  is  not  to  be  accepted  as  giving  realities,  but, 
at  best,  as  being  only  an  instrument  which  serves  our  human 
purposes  and  action.3 

This  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  typical  attack.  It  can  be  ex- 
tended, in  a  way  analogous  to  the  attack  on  the  analysis  of 
space  and  of  time,  to  include  the  contradiction  between  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  original  motion  and  the  discontinuity  (that  which 

1  E.g.,  Bergson,  Creative  Evolution,  304-313. 
*  Ibid.,  163. 

1  Cf.,  e.g.,  Bergson,  op.  ctt.,  Index,  under  Intellect  and  Action,  for  reference  to 
a  manifold  of  statements  to  this  effect. 


THE  ANALYSIS  OF  MOTION  195 

is  held  to  be  such)  between  the  rests,  and  perhaps  there  are 
other  extensions  or  variations.  But  all  can  be  replied  to  and 
refuted,  if  the  actual  results  of  the  modern  analysis  of  motion  be 
considered  in  their  fullness,  and  be  not  misstated. 

What  are  these  results?  The  preceding  discussions  have  pre- 
pared the  way  for  their  presentation  and  explanation,  so  that 
the  precise  problem  now  at  issue  is  whether  an  exact,  a  non-fal- 
sifying analysis  of  motion  as  motion,  and  a  definition  of  motion  in 
terms  of  that  analysis,  can  be  made. 

Now  such  an  analysis  and  definition  do  not  logically  involve 
direction,  or  rate,  or  even  change  or  constancy  of  rate,  or  cause, 
although  no  existential  motion  can  take  place  without  these 
characteristics,  or  be  empirically  discovered  without  some  of  them. 
However,  once  discovered,  it  can  be  analyzed  and  defined  without 
implying  them.  That  this  is  the  case  can  be  made  clear  as  follows. 

To  determine  empirically  that  there  is  motion  demands  the 
observation  of  two  points,  A  and  B,  the  possible  specification  of 
these  two  points  by  three  coordinates  as  a  frame  of  reference, 
and  the  observation,  directly  or  indirectly,  of  the  traveling  of  a 
particle  or  body  from  A  to  B.  But  with  this  specification  the 
general  direction  of  the  motion  is  also  specified.  By  general  obser- 
vation, its  path,  its  course  or  curve  can  also  be  discovered,  while, 
by  means  of  applied  mechanics  and  further  observation,  the 
equation  of  its  curve,  its  constant  or  its  changing  velocity,  etc.,  can 
be  determined.  But  with  all  these  determinations  made,  and  with 
some  of  them  necessarily  involved  hi  the  empirical  ascertainment  of 
the  fact  of  motion,  the  motion  can  nevertheless  subsequently  be 
defined  and  analyzed  without  involving  them,  and  even  without 
involving  anything  such  as  a  material  particle  moving. 

So  defined,  motion  is  the  series  of  individual  one-one  relations 
correlating  the  terms  of  two  series,  the  time  and  the  space,  in  such 
a  way  that,  if  x  and  x'  be  any  two  terms  of  the  time  series,  y  and  y' 
any  two  terms  of  the  space  series,  and  x  has  the  correlating  relation 
to  y,  that  is,  xRy,  then  it  does  not  have  this  relation  to  y',  nor  does 
x'  have  it  to  y.  In  a  manner,  then,  somewhat  analogous  to  that  in 


196  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

which  a  two-dimensional  spatial  series  is  the  domain  of  an  asym- 
metrical transitive  relation  R  between  asymmetrical  transitive  re- 
lations between  points,1  motion  is  a  series  of  complex  terms,  each 
of  which  consists  of  a  one-one  correlating  relation  between 
a  specific  term  of  the  space  and  a  specific  term  of  the  time 
series;  and  just  as  the  terms  of  each  of  these  two  series  are 
related  asymmetrically  and  transitively,  so  are  these  complex 
terms  and  the  correlating  relations  similarly  related.  In  sym- 
bols, using  r  for  the  correlating  relation,  R  for  the  asymmet- 

\xRx'Rx"  . 


rical  transitive  relation,    we   have 


rRr'Rr" 


in    which 


yRy'Ry"  .  . 

xRx'Rx"  is  the  time  series,  yRy'Ry"  the  space  series,  and  the 
whole  is  motion.2  But  further,  just  as  the  time  and  the  space  series 
are  each  continuous,  so  is  the  motion  series,  and  all  the  positive 
statements  which  in  the  preceding  sections  were  made  with  regard 
to  the  continuity  of  the  first  two  series  hold  good  of  the  motion 
series. 

Motion  is,  therefore,  a  series,  the  domain  of  a  relation  which  relates 
relations  which  correlate  terms  in  a  one-one  manner.  Briefly,  it  is  a 
series  of  complex  terms,  xRy  or  pRi  (p  =  point,  i  =  instant,  and  r  = 
the  one-one  correlating  relation).  But  it  is  not  the  complex  term, 
xry,  or  x'r'y',  etc.,  that  is,  the  correlating  relation  with  its  correlated 
terms  x  and  y,  or  x'  and  y',  etc.,  of  the  two  series,  the  time  and  space. 
Nor  is  this  complex  term  rest,  for  rest  is  logically  analogous  to  mo- 
tion. Rest  is  or  involves  a  many-one  correlating  relation  R  between 
many  instants  of  time  and  one  point  of  space  hi  such  a  way  that 
xRy,  x'Ry,  x,  xr,  x"  .  .  .  being  different  and  the  T/'S  identical. 
Quite  analogously  too,  a  logical  definition  of  impenetrability  and  so 
of  matter  can  be  given.8 

Impenetrability  is  or  involves  a  many-one  correlating  relation 
R  between  many  points  of  space  y,  y',  y"  .  .  .  and  one  instant  of 

1  See  191. 

1  A  term  can  stand  in  many  relations.     Cf.  Perry,  this  volume,  Section  III. 

1  See  Russell,  op.  tit.,  467  and  480. 


MOTION  AND  REST  197 

time  x,  so  that  xRy,  xRy',  xRy",  are  different  and  mutually 
exclusive.  Although,  now,  the  correlating  relations  in  each  one  of 
these  three  cases  are  similar,  nevertheless  they  are  individual  and 
in  this  sense  different,  and  that  they  must  be  this  is  implied  by  the 
individuality  of  x,  x',  x"  .  .  .  and  of  y,  y'  y"  .  .  .  respectively.1 

Rest,  then,  is  also  a  series  of  complex  terms,  namely,  of  correlat- 
ing relations  with  their  terms,  themselves  related  asymmetrically 
and  transitively,  and  likewise  with  impenetrability.  Motion,  rest, 
and  impenetrability  are  each  continuous.  The  possibly  sur- 
prising character  of  this  conclusion  is  rendered  less  so  by  the 
realization  that  neither  motion  nor  rest  is  either  space  or  time, 
but  that  each  must  be  in  some  way  a  matter  of  relation  between 
these  entities. 

However,  these  definitions  and  analyses  so  far  are  purely  kine- 
matical;  that  is,  they  concern  simply  the  geometry  and  arithmetic 
of  motion.  They  do  not  involve  actual  matter,  or  causation,  or 
velocity,  or  acceleration,  or  direction  in  any  other  sense  than  that 
an  asymmetrical  relation  has  or  is  direction.  When  these  concepts 
are  considered  and  brought  into  relation  with  space  and  time  we 
have  Dynamics  and  Mechanics,  pure  and  applied.  But  the  defi- 
nitions and  analysis  so  far  given  present  simply  the  logical  possi- 
bility of  an  existential  motion,  rest,  and  impenetrability.  They 
show  what  characteristics  an  existential  motion  or  rest  must  have, 
although  these  may  also  have  other  characteristics.  By  them- 
selves they  show  what  motion  and  rest  are,  whether  or  not  these 
exist.  For,  granting  that  in  order  to  have  an  existential  motion  or 
rest,  there  must  be  something,  say,  matter,  at  rest  or  in  motion, 
then  motion  and  rest  are  not  this  matter,  just  as  they  are  not  time 
and  space. 

These  propositions  and  the  position  with  which  they  are  identical 
may  seem  to  involve  a  degree  of  analysis  which  might  well  be  open 
to  question  and  to  offer  a  vulnerable  opening  for  attack.  But 
even  if  this  opportunity  were  improved  and  were  successful,  it 

1  Therefore  I  have  symbolized  the  individual  R's  by  r',  r",  etc.,  in  the  above 
formulae  for  motion. 


198  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

would  not  invalidate  our  general  defense  of  analysis  against  a 
specific  type  of  attack.  It  could  show  at  best  only  that  this 
specific  analysis  and  defense  is  in  error,  an  outcome  the  possi- 
bility of  which  the  most  strenuous  supporter  of  analysis  would 
admit. 

The  supporter  of  the  realistic  view  of  the  analysis  of  motion, 
etc.,  can  make  his  defense,  then,  even  though,  for  example,  motion 
could  not  be  defined  unless  there  were  something  to  move.  For  let 
this  supposition  be  granted.  Let  it  be  granted  that  there  could 
be  no  motion,  or  rest,  unless  there  were  a  material  particle  or 
particles.  The  fact  is  that  motion  and  rest  exist,  for  there  are 
material  particles  and  bodies.  And  the  actual  attack  on  the  analy- 
sis of  motion  concerns  the  existential  motion.  The  defense,  there- 
fore, can  be  made  on  the  same  basis,  although  it  is  not  neces- 
sarily limited  to  this. 

The  attack  has  been  stated.  It  is  argued  that  the  analysis  of 
motion  leads  to  rests,  and  so  is  false ;  or,  that  it  leads  from  con- 
tinuity to  discontinuity,  and  so,  also,  is  false.  This  attack  gains 
plausibility,  because,  once  again,  there  is  a  misstatement  of  the 
actual  results  of  analysis ;  the  character  of  the  terms  is  misstated, 
and  the  organizing  relation  is  neglected.  For  consider  an  actual 
case  of  motion,  that  of  a  body  0  moving  from  the  point  or  position 
A  to  the  point  or  position  B.  Some  means  of  measurement  is 
necessary  to  determine,  within  certain  limits  of  accuracy,  certain 
quantities  involved  in  this  motion,  namely,  the  distance  traveled, 
the  time  required  for  this,  etc.  But  once  this  is  done,  the  following 
state  of  affairs  is  recognized  by  the  analyst.  The  path,  whatever 
be  its  curve,  is  a  continuous  series  of  points,  and  the  time  a  con- 
tinuous series  of  instants.  And  the  material  particle,  or  its  center 
of  gravity  (centroid),  serves  existentially  to  correlate  each  specific 
point  of  the  path  with  one  and  only  one  specific  instant  of  time. 
For  if  there  were  a  correlation  of  one  and  the  same  point  with  two 
instants,  the  particle  would  be  at  rest.  Put  in  terms  of  the  pre- 
ceding kinematical  analysis,  the  material  particle  serves  to  make 
existential  a  certain  series  of  correlating  one-one  relations  between 


MOTION  ANALYZED  199 

the  points  of  the  space  which  is  the  path  and  the  instants  of  time 
required.  And  just  as  both  the  space  series  and  the  time  series  are 
continuous  and  are  in  one-one  correspondence  with  the  real  num- 
bers, so  is  the  series  of  specific  individual  correlating  relations  with 
their  terms  continuous,  with  these  complex  terms  related  asym- 
metrically and  transitively  and  in  one-one  correspondence  with 
the  real  numbers.  The  existential  motion  is  the  material  particle 
making  existential  the  series  of  one-one  correlating  relations  be- 
tween the  points  of  space  and  the  instants  of  time.  It  is  all  this. 
Making  this  series  existential  is  the  motion  of  the  particle. 

It  can  be  shown  very  clearly,  now,  that  the  results  of  this  analysis, 
which  is  really  identical  with  the  results  obtained  by  applying  the 
calculus  to  motion,  are  not  open  to  certain  interpretations,  namely, 
just  those  on  the  basis  of  which  the  attack  is  made.  Thus  the  one-one 
correlation  of  specific  instants  with  specific  points,  by  means  of  the 
material  particle,  that  is,  the  correlation  of  one  point  y  with  one 
and  only  one  instant  x  and  not  with  this  and  another  instant  xr, 
is  not  to  be  interpreted  as  rest.  It  may  be  said  to  be  an  instance 
of  'occupying/1  by  one  entity,  of  one  point  at  a  time,  but  this 
term  is  somewhat  vague  and  ambiguous,  and  needs  definition. 
Rest  is  undoubtedly  in  some  sense  different  from  motion.  And 
the  only  way  to  state  this  difference  with  precision  is  to  define  ex- 
istential rest  as  involving  the  many-one  correlation,  by  a  material 
particle,  of  many  instants  with  one  point.  Therefore,  if,  in  the 
analysis  of  motion,  any  one  of  the  manifold  of  complexes,  each 
consisting  of  a  one-one  relation  correlating  one  instant  with  one 
point,  be  interpreted  as  rest,  the  above  definition  is  presupposed, 
this  one  instant  itself  is  implied  to  be,  not  one,  but  many,  and 
a  contradiction  is  introduced.  In  every  case  here  we  are  led 
ultimately  to  terms  not  further  analyzable  into  terms  of  the  same 
kind.  Instants  and  points  are  such  terms  in  the  case  of  time 
and  space,  and  the  complex  term,  xRy,  under  discussion  here,  is  in 
the  case  of  motion.  The  occupying  of  a  point  at  an  instant  by 
one  entity  is,  therefore,  not  to  be  interpreted  as  rest.  It  cannot 

1  Mr.  Russell's  term,  op.  dt.,  465. 


200  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

be,  without  implying  the  contradictory,  that  it  is  not  to  be  so 
interpreted.  The  arbitrary  attempt  discloses  that  which  is  not 
arbitrary,  but  is  ultimate,  necessary  fact. 

But  just  as  little  is  this  complex,  this  one-one  correlation  of  a 
point  with  an  instant,  the  series  of  which  complexes  is  motion,  it- 
self to  be  interpreted  as  motion.  Sometimes  it  is  supposed  that 
it  must  be  so  interpreted.  It  is  supposed  that  motion  presupposes 
or  implies  other,  partial  motions,  and  these  in  turn  other,  smaller 
motions  —  no  matter  how  small  —  and  so  on.  But  this  involves 
or  is  identical  with  an  infinite  regress.  Then  motion  cannot  be 
denned  except  in  circular  terms,  or  parts  other  than  motions  be 
discovered,  unless  this  infinite  regress  can  be  escaped  from  or 
avoided.  But  escape  is,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  regress,  im- 
possible. 

As  we  have  previously  seen,  infinite  wholes  are  of  two  kinds, 
objectionable  and  unobjectionable,  those  involving  difficulties, 
and  those  not.  Any  infinite  whole  or  series  presents  difficulties, 
if  the  attempt  is  made  to  treat  it  only  by  enumeration.  For 
then,  strictly  speaking,  it  cannot  be  treated  in  its  infinite  character. 

Indeed,  to  attempt  to  treat  an  infinite  series  by  enumeration  is 
already  to  involve  oneself  in  an  infinite  regress.  For  enumeration 
serves  to  discover  or  to  count  only  further  terms  like  those  already 
enumerated,  which  further  terms  imply  further  similar  terms  to 
be  enumerated.  An  infinite  regress,  then,  is  never  completed, 
and  it  is  impossible  on  its  basis  to  get  other  than  a  circular  defi- 
nition. An  infinite  regress  is  for  this  reason,  if  for  no  other, 
objectionable.  Sometimes,  however,  we  find  the  position  taken 
that  the  very  nature  of  the  infinite  is  its  incompleteness  or  *un- 
completedness.'  Indeed  this  definition  is  sometimes  employed  in 
order  to  attack  realism.  It  is  held  that  realism  means,  among  other 
things,  the  completed  infinite  —  of  space,  for  example.  But  then, 
it  is  argued,  the  completed  infinite  is  self-contradictory.  There- 
fore the  conclusion  is  drawn  that  realism  involves  a  specific  self- 
contradiction  !  Manifestly,  however,  this  argument  is  based  on 
the  tacitly  held  premise  that  the  infinite  can  be  treated  only  by 


INFINITE  WHOLES  201 

enumeration.  Then,  it  follows  that  the  infinite  is  never  completely 
treated,  that  is,  is  uncompleted.  The  definition  of  the  infinite 
which  follows  from  the  premise  assumed  illustrates  with  precision 
the  outcome  of  that  premise,  and  confirms  the  initial  assertion. 
That  definition  is  that  the  infinite  is  the  uncompleted,  the  unended. 
But  this  is  only  a  circular  definition  etymologically  obscure  and 
well  illustrating  the  infinite  regress  which  any  circular  definition 
involves. 

How  different  from  the  foregoing  definition  is  the  non-circular 
definition  that  an  infinite  whole  is  such  a  whole  as  is  similar  to  a 
proper  part  of  itself  by  virtue  of  both  whole  and  proper  part 
being  composed  of  terms  which  are  different  from  both  whole  and 
proper  part  —  proper  part  being  defined  as  a  part  which  is  similar 
qualitatively  to  the  whole.  Thus,  a  finite  line  is  similar  to  a  proper 
part  of  itself,  in  that,  line  and  part  being  one-dimensional  spatial 
extension,  both  are  composed  of  an  infinite  number  of  points  in  an 
asymmetrical  transitive  relation.  And  the  case  is  the  same  with 
any  finite  period  of  time,  and  with  any  segment  of  the  real  num- 
bers. But  to  deal  with  the  infinite  by  means  of  such  a  definition 
is  to  deal  with  it  by  implication,  by  intension,  and  not  by  enumera- 
tion. Motion  does  presuppose  smaller  motions,  a  line,  smaller 
lines,  but  in  each  one  of  these  cases  there  are  also  other  entities 
presupposed  which  are  different  from  the  whole,  namely,  the  xRy's 
(instant-R-point)  in  the  case  of  motion,  and  points  in  the  case 
of  lines,  and  these  entities  cannot  be  discovered  by  enumeration. 

There  is  a  kind  of  infinite  whole,  therefore,  which  is  quite  unob- 
jectionable, which  can  be  defined  by  a  non-circular  definition  (thus 
avoiding  the  regress),  and  which  is  both  complete  and  completed 
in  just  the  way  indicated  by  the  definition;  that  is,  it  is  dealt  with 
in  such  a  way  that  we  can  discover  something  about  it  and  some- 
thing by  means  of  it.  Indeed,  this  infinite  is  the  only  one  which 
throws  any  light  on  continuity.  This  can  be  demonstrated  as  fol- 
lows :  The  integers  form  an  infinite  series,  but  they  are  not  con- 
tinuous, for  there  is  not  one  integer  between  any  two.  They  can 
be  treated  and  defined  either  by  enumeration  or  by  intension. 


202  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

By  the  one  method  they  are  an  endless  series.  By  the  other, 
they  are  such  a  series  as  implies,  for  example,  that  the  class  of 
even  integers  has  as  many  members  as  has  the  whole  class,  for 
the  even  integers  can  be  put  in  one-one  correspondence  with  all 
the  integers.  Therefore  the  integers  are  infinite,  but  they  are  not 
continuous,  and  likewise  with  the  rational  fractions.  Infinity 
does  not  imply  continuity,  but  the  converse  proposition  does 
not  hold.  Continuity  does  imply  infinity,  but  not  alone  that  in- 
finity, which,  such  as  that  of  the  integers  and  rational  fractions, 
can  be  dealt  with  by  enumeration,  but  also  that  infinity  which, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  irrationals,  can  be  dealt  with  only  by  intension. 
To  get  at  the  nature  of  continuity  we  must  have,  therefore,  some 
other  method  than  that  of  enumeration,  some  method  other  than 
one  which  gets  us  into  an  infinite  regress.  Motion  does  presuppose 
motion,  extension,  smaller  extensions.1  But  to  recognize  this 
gets  us  nowhere,  helps  us  not  at  all  in  getting  terms  which  are 
different  from  motion  and  extension,  and  does  not  make  possible 
a  non-circular  definition.  Quite  similarly  it  would  seem  to  be 
a  useless  interpretation  to  define  a  point  or  an  instant  as  either 
extended  or  unextended,  in  contradiction  to  the  extension  of  space 
and  time.  The  use  of  either  the  positive  or  negative  term  really 
gives  a  circular  definition.  Extension  and  'un-extension/  con- 
tinuity and  discontinuity,  have  nothing  to  do  with  points  or  in- 
stants as  such.  Likewise  the  complex  terms,  the  one-one  relations 
between  specific  instants  of  time  and  specific  points  of  space  in 
the  case  of  any  actual  specific  motion,  are  neither  rest  nor  motion, 
neither  continuous  nor  discontinuous,  neither  spatial  nor  temporal 
(in  isolation),  nor  extension.  They  are  what  they  are,  complexes 
of  existential  one-one  relations  correlating  the  points  of  a  specific 
finite  space  and  the  instants  of  a  specific  period  of  time,  the  series 
of  such  complex  terms  being  motion. 

I  may  now  summarize  my  reply  to  this  first  attack  on  the 
analysis  of  motion  which  claims  that  the  analysis  is  false  because 
it  leads  to  rests.  Motion  can  be  admitted  to  presuppose  smaller 
motions,  but  this  gets  us  nowhere,  and  is  identical  with  treating 


ATTACK  AND  REPLY  203 

an  infinite  whole  only  enumeratively  —  a  method  which  makes 
the  infinite  the  uncompleted,  and  involves  us  in  a  number  of  artificial 
antinomies  and  contradictions.  On  the  other  hand,  if  that  method 
is  used  which  is  the  only  possible  method  of  actually  dealing  with 
infinite  wholes  in  their  infinity,  namely,  the  method  of  intension, 
then  motion  is  found  to  be  a  continuous  series  of  one-one  correlating 
relations  with  their  terms,  these  correlating  relations  and  the  com- 
plex terms  which  they  form  being  themselves  related  asymmetri- 
cally and  transitively.  Motion  is,  then,  the  field  of  an  asymmetri- 
cal transitive  relation  whose  terms  are  again  relations  that  are 
made  existential  by  a  material  particle.  The  terms  are  not  prima 
fade  the  contradictory  of  the  original  entity  analyzed,  the  motion. 
They  are  simply  different  from  it.  Neglect  the  organizing  relation 
between  them,  and  the  terms  will  seem  to  be  rests,  and  some 
kind  of  'transition'  from  term  to  term  will  seem  to  be  necessary. 
Consider  this  relation,  and  observe  the  true  character  of  the  analy- 
sis, and  the  terms  are  found  to  be  neither  rest  nor  motion.  So, 
too,  if  the  true  character  both  of  the  terms  and  of  the  relation 
between  them  is  observed,  a  concise  and  exact  definition  and  ex- 
planation of  the  continuity  of  the  original  motion  is  obtainable, 
in  a  manner  quite  analogous  to  the  definition  and  explanation  of 
the  continuity  of  space  and  of  time. 

The  second  argument  against  the  analysis  of  motion,  that  it 
leads  from  the  original  continuity  to  a  discontinuity  between  the 
terms,  fails  also.  For  here,  as  with  the  points  of  space  and  the 
instants  of  time,  the  alleged  discontinuity  is  that  very  charac- 
teristic by  which  the  continuity  of  a  series  is  defined  —  the  'parti- 
tion-definition' of  Dedekind.1 

It  must  be  concluded,  that  the  analysis  of  motion,  as  made  by 
modern  science,  stands  unimpugned.  It  is  adequate,  and  it  is  not 
false.  It  reveals  terms  and  relations  which  by  themselves  are  dif- 
ferent from  the  whole,  but  the  additional  characteristics  of  the  whole 
are  also  revealed.  There  is  a  creative  synthesis ;  the  whole  as  a 
whole  is  different  from  the  terms  and  relations  taken  individually, 

1  This  section,  on  Space. 


204  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

but  it  is  these  parts  related.  Then  the  analysis  is  adequate.  And 
it  is  not  false,  since  it  is  not  found  to  lead,  when  stated  correctly,  to 
terms  or  relations  which  in  any  way  are  the  contradictories  of  the 
original  whole.  The  terms  are  not  rests,  they  are  not  motions,  they 
are  not  discontinuous  from  one  another,  and  there  is  no  transition 
from  one  to  another.  They  are,  as  a  series,  translation,  motion. 
But  with  the  analysis  qua  analysis  thus  vindicated  and  with  the 
general  realistic  position  assumed  to  be  established,  it  may  be  said 
that  both  the  motion  as  a  whole,  and  the  transitive  asymmetrical 
relations,  the  correlating  relations,  and  the  points  and  instants 
involved  in  that  whole,  are  all  equally  real,  although  not  the  same 
kind  of  realities.  The  analysis  of  motion,  like  the  analysis  of  space 
and  time,  is  a  method  of  discovering  entities  which  are  independent 
of  their  discovery  and  of  their  being  known. 

5.  Velocity  and  Acceleration.  —  Just  as  the  one-one  correlating 
relations,  themselves  related  asymmetrically  and  transitively 
(which  with  their  terms,  instants,  and  points,  constitute  motion), 
are  existing  relations,  if  the  correlation  is  effected  by  a  material 
particle,  so  also  are  velocity  and  acceleration  existing  enti- 
ties under  the  same  condition.  In  fact,  there  is  no  actual 
motion  that  does  not  involve  velocity,  or  a  negative  or  posi- 
tive acceleration.  But  these  characteristics  are  not  involved 
necessarily  in  motion  as  such,  even  as  motion  is  not  involved  in 
space  or  in  time  as  such,  or  these  in  each  other,  or  both  together  in 
logical  principles.  Analysis  reveals  a  most  interesting  and 
peculiar  relation,  that  of  logical  priority.1  This  relation,  as  an 
analytical  result,  is,  of  course,  attacked,  but  it  can  be  successfully 
defended.  It  involves  nothing  contradictory  if  it  is  treated  on 
a  strictly  empirical  basis.2  Logical  priority  may  be  defined  as 
that  state  of  affairs  in  which,  for  example,  a  proposition  B  implies 
or  presupposes  proposition  A,  but  A  does  not  imply  B.  A  is 

1  Cf.  Marvin  and  Perry,  this  volume,  also  Russell,  op.  cit.,  114. 
*  Speculatively,  of  course,  it  can  be  attacked.     But  such  an  attack  is  replied  to 
in  Section  IV  of  this  essay. 


205 

then  logically  prior  to  B.  The  instances  of  this  relation  are 
many,  and  the  fact  of  its  subsistence  is  evidence  for  a  pluralistic 
universe.  Certain  A's  could  exist  or  subsist  without  B's,  al- 
though, conversely,  not.  Certain  important  instances  of  this 
relation  concern  us  in  the  present  discussion.  Thus,  a  propos 
of  the  statement  just  made  concerning  motion,  etc.,  it  may  be 
said  that  logical  principles  are  logically  prior  to  all  else,  —  to 
space,  to  time,  etc.,  —  such  logical  principles,  namely,  as  in- 
clude the  principles  of  pure  mathematics  (arithmetic).  Space 
and  time  seem  to  be  coordinate,  but  they  are  logically  prior  to 
motion  as  such.  Change,  however,  is  logically  prior  to  motion, 
and  motion  is  logically  prior  to  its  causation  and  to  its  constant 
or  changing  velocity. 

The  further  examination  of  the  field  of  this  relation  of  logical 
priority  shows,  moreover,  that  there  are  certain  sciences  which  are 
logically  prior  to  others.  Thus,  letting  the  order  of  enumeration 
stand  for  the  relation  under  discussion,  some  of  the  sciences  may 
be  arranged  in  the  following  series  in  order  of  logical  priority: 
Logic,  Geometry,  Science  of  Time,  Kinematics,  Dynamics,  Pure 
Mechanics,  Applied  Mechanics,  Physics,  Physical  Chemistry, 
Physiology,  Psychology. 

The  logic  here  meant  includes  not  only  the  logic  of  propositions, 
of  classification,  of  definitions,  as  usually  understood  in  the  text- 
books, but  also  the  logic  of  relations,  of  infinite  classes,  of  con- 
tinuity, of  variable  and  constant,  of  the  status  of  entities,  etc.,  etc., 
some  of  which  has  been  made  use  of  in  this  essay.  Some  of  the 
important  features  of  geometry  and  of  the  science  of  time  have 
been  presented,  and  the  demonstration  made  that  space  and 
time  imply  certain  logical  principles,  although  the  converse 
is  not  the  case;  and  the  analysis  of  motion  as  such  that  has 
been  presented  constitutes  part  of  Kinematics,  implied  by  Dy- 
namics, but  not  conversely.  But  we  are  now  to  consider,  briefly, 
velocity  and  acceleration.  That  will  take  us  beyond  Kinematics. 
Motion  as  such  has  been  analyzed  and  defined  without  reference 
to  these  entities,  but,  very  evidently,  they  imply  motion.  And 


206  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

existentially,  of  course,  there  is  no  motion  which  does  not  involve 
velocity  —  either  constant  or  changing.  What,  now,  are  velocity 
and  acceleration  ?  Once  again,  as  in  the  discovery  of  actual  cases 
of  motion  and  in  the  statement  of  what  it  is,  whether  discovered 
or  not,  a  distinction  must  be  made  between  the  means  of  discover- 
ing velocity  and  acceleration  and  these  entities  themselves.  To 
discover  actual  motion  there  is  necessary  the  empirical  observation, 
either  direct  or  indirect,  of  two  points,  A  and  B,  of  one  configuration 
defined  with  reference  to  one  set  of  coordinates,  and  the  observation 
of  the  traveling  of  a  body  from  A  to  B  along  some  path.  To  dis- 
cover velocity,  not  only  are  these  two  observations  necessary, 
but  also  the  empirical  observation  and  measurement  of  the  time 
taken  for  the  body  to  move  from  A  to  J5,  and  of  the  length  of  the 
path  AB.  We  then  have  two  finite  quantities,  distance  traveled, 
and  time  taken,  and  a  material  body.  The  motion  of  the  body  is, 
then,  that  whole  which  is  the  series  of  relations  correlating  the 
points  of  this  path  with  the  instants  of  this  time.  The  relation 
of  the  distance  traveled  and  the  time  taken  can  then  be  expressed, 

o 

assuming  the  measurement  to  be  accurate,  in  fractional  form,  -, 

I 

and  this  is  velocity  as  commonly  understood.  It  has  a  definite 
numerical  value,  found  through  the  measurement  of  the  finite 
time  and  space  involved.  So  far,  then,  velocity  is  an  entity,  an 
existential  relation  between  a  specific  time  and  space,  mediated 
by  a  material  particle.  Although  expressed  by  a  fraction,  it  is 
one  entity,  though  perhaps  a  complex  one,  and  not  two,  for  a  frac- 
tion, although  symbolized  by  two  or  more  signs,  is  only  one  number. 
But  the  velocity,  or  rather  its  value,  is  so  far  only  an  average  ve- 
locity, for  the  same  resultant  would  be  obtained  if  during  the  time 
taken  for  the  whole  motion  there  were  plus  and  minus  deviations 
from  this  average.  The  velocity  would  be  presumed  to  be  con- 
stant provided  only,  that,  if  found  for  any  distance  As,  no  matter 
how  small,  for  any  time  A£,  no  matter  how  small,  it  would  re- 
quire the  time  nA£  to  travel  the  distance  nAs,  where  n  is  the  same 
multiplier.  But  this  would  be  only  a  presumption ;  any  velocity, 


VELOCITY  207 

ds 

— ,  might  be  only  an  average  of  deviating  velocities.     For  practical 

(K 

purposes,  of  course,  average  velocities  are  quite  sufficient.  Yet 
modern  analysis  is  theoretically  able  to  determine  velocity  for  any 
instant  of  a  body's  finite  motion,  and  so  to  show  that  there  are 
deviations,  or  that  the  velocity  is  genuinely  constant,  that  is,  the 
same  at  every  instant.  The  velocity  can  be  shown  to  be  constant, 
or  not,  with  a  greater  degree  of  assurance,  by  taking  any  two  s's 
traveled  in  two  t's,  passing  to  the  limit  of  each  of  the  two  ratios, 
and  comparing  the  -values  thus  obtained.  In  fact,  only  in  this 
way  can  it  be  determined  whether  the  velocity  is  constant  or  not. 
One  determination  for  any  one  As  and  A£,  whether  this  be  part 
or  whole,  relatively  small  or  large,  does  not  suffice  to  do  this,  but 
shows  only  what  the  velocity  is  at  a  certain  instant  or  what  its 
average  is  for  a  certain  finite  space  or  time.  Two  determinations, 
either  of  the  whole  and  of  any  partial  motion,  or  of  any  two  partial 
motions,  alone  suffice  to  decide  the  question,  under  the  above  con- 
ditions, whether  the  velocity  is  constant  or  not. 

But  with  this  question  once  decided,  what  are  the  velocity 
and  the  acceleration  ?  Let  us  consider  first  the  case  in  which  the 
velocity  is  constant.  In  this  case  the  numerical  value  of  the  limit 

As 
of  any  and  of  all  the  ratios,  — ,  is  the  same  for  every  instant  of  the 

time  required  for  the  motion.  This  value  is  the  value  of  the  complex, 
the  one-one  relation  correlating  each  point  of  the  path  with  each 

As 
instant  of  the  time  taken.     For  —  taken  at  the  limit  means,  as 

As 

does  the  ratio  itself,  space-related-to-time.  For  — ,  it  is  finite  dis- 
tance related  to  finite  time ;  for  the  limit,  it  is  point  related  to 
instant.  In  the  case  of  a  motion  with  constant  velocity,  therefore, 
the  complexes,  the  correlating  relations  with  their  terms,  have 
values ;  they  are  magnitudes,  since  they  can  be  greater  or  less  than, 
or  equal  to  something  else  of  the  same  kind,  that  is,  some  other 
velocity ;  but  as  constant  velocities  of  one  motion  they  have  the 


208  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

same  value,  or  are  the  same  magnitude,  expressed  by  the  same 
number  —  whatever  this  may  be.  How,  then,  can  they  be 
the  terms  of  a  series,  the  field  of  an  asymmetrical  transitive 
relation  —  which  they  must  be  as  constituting  motion?  For 
does  not  this  relation  demand  different  values,  values  in 
order  of  magnitude  1  The  answer  to  the  question  is  that  the 
latter  point  concerns  only  the  continuity  of  the  motion,  and  not 
the  constancy  of  the  velocity.  The  continuity  of  motion  is  the 
same  as  the  continuity  of  the  real  numbers,  the  number  con- 
tinuum. There  is  a  one-one  correspondence  between  these 
numbers  and  the  correlating  relations  which  with  their  terms  are 
motion.  Then  these  complexes  have  an  order.  But  at  the  same 
time,  each  complex,  consisting  of  correlating  relation  with  its  terms, 
has  a  value  or  is  a  magnitude,  and  this  value  in  the  case  of  constant 
velocity  is  the  same  for  all  these  complex  terms.  That  value  may 
be  expressed  by  any  real  number,  but,  once  found  for  constant 
velocity,  it  is  the  value  of  the  complex,  correlating  relation  with 
its  terms,  for  every  instant. 

I  must  disagree,  then,  with  the  statement  that  "there  is  no 
such  thing  as  velocity  except  in  the  sense  of  a  real  number  which 
is  the  limit  for  a  certain  set  of  ratios."  l  Existential  velocity  is  the 
magnitude  of  the  existential  complex,  consisting  of  the  one-one 
relation  between  one  instant  and  one  point,  when  this  relation  is 
mediated  by  a  material  particle.  It  itself  is  not  time,  nor  space, 
nor  matter;  but  it  is  involved  hi  these;  that  is,  it  exists  if  there  is  a 
real  material  particle  moving  and  so  serving  to  make  the  continuous 
series  of  correlating  relations  existential.  But  there  are  moving 
material  particles.  Then  velocity  exists,  although  it  is  a  complex, 
that  is,  a  relation  and  its  terms.  And,  existing,  it  is  also  a  magni- 
tude in  that  it  is  equal  to  or  greater  or  less  than  other  velocities. 
It  is,  therefore,  both  a  complex  and  a  magnitude.  Once  dis- 
covered by  taking  the  ratio  of  small  distances  traveled  to  small 
times  required,  and  passing  to  the  limit,  it  can,  however,  be  defined 
independently  of  this  method,  even  as  has  been  done  above.  But 

»  Russell,  op.  tit.,  473. 


ACCELERATION  209 

in  turn,  velocity  as  such  can  be  defined  independently  of  existen- 
tial velocities.  The  latter  exist  if  material  particles  exist  and 
move.  But  they  would  subsist  in  that  the  complex  referred  to  is  a 
magnitude.  Thus  there  are  possible,  subsisting  velocities  which 
have  not  existed,  do  not  exist,  and  perhaps  never  will.  There 
is,  then,  a  kinematical  definition  of  velocity  as  well  as  a  dynamical 
one. 

ACCELEEATION 

The  case  with  acceleration  is  much  the  same  as  with  velocity. 
Once  discovered,  it  can  be  defined  independently  of  that  discovery, 
and  even  independently  of  existing  accelerations.  The  method  for 
ascertaining  whether  or  not  there  is  acceleration,  positive  or  nega- 
tive, is  that  of  finding  out  whether  there  is  constant  velocity.  Two 

ds 

-r's  must  be  obtained  on  the  basis  of  empirical  measurement,  and 

compared;  that  is,  the  numerical  values  of  the  velocities  at  two 
instants  must  be  determined  and  compared.  Let  these  values 
be  different.  Then  they  are  but  different  values  of  the  magnitude 
of  the  complex,  correlating  relation  between  a  specific  point  and 
instant.  They  exist  if  the  correlating  relation  is  mediated  by  a 
material  particle.  Its  mediation  of  all  the  correlating  relations 
in  a  certain  finite  series  is  its  motion.  But  if  the  material  particle 
moves,  then  there  may  be  a  real  acceleration.  To  determine, 
in  turn,  whether  the  acceleration  is  uniform  or  not,  demands 
methods  which,  since  they  are  quite  analogous  to  those  required 
for  determining  whether  velocity  is  uniform  or  not,1  need  not  be 
presented  here.  But  let  it  be  found  that  the  acceleration  in  a 
number  of  specific  instances  is  uniform.  Then  the  generalization 
can  be  stated,  and  a  definition  of  uniform  acceleration  be  given  which 
is  independent  of  the  method  of  discovery.  Uniform  acceleration 
then  turns  out  to  be  a  most  interesting  entity.  Motion  is  change 
of  position.  It  is  a  whole,  a  series,  as  has  been  explained,  with  its 
terms  complexes  which  are  neither  rest  nor  motion.  Velocity  is 

1  See  this  section,  on  Motion. 

P 


210  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

a  correlating  relation  and  its  terms,  the  whole  having  magnitude. 
It  is  identical  with  any  one  of  the  terms  of  motion  in  respect  to 
their  magnitude.  Acceleration,  now,  is  a  whole,  a  series,  a  change. 
It  is  the  change  of  velocity  in  time,  the  second  derivative.  It  in- 
volves, then,  the  one-one  correlation  of  the  terms  of  a  series  of  ve- 
locities with  the  instants  of  time.  We  have,  therefore,  a  complex 
term,  pR\i  (=  velocity,  the  correlation  of  a  point  p  with  an  in- 
stant i)  in  turn  in  one-one  correlation  with  an  instant,  thus,  — 
(pRii)  Rzi  or  vR2i.  Put  in  symbolic  form,  and  using  r  =  R2,  r 
being  the  correlating  relation,  as  in  the  formula  for  motion1,  we 
have 

v    v'     v"    v"r 

rRr'Rr"Rrm  -  •  - 

i    i'     i"     i'" 

Acceleration  is,  then,  the  series  of  complex  terms,  each  one  a 
(pRii)  Rzi,  related  asymmetrically  and  transitively.  If  a  material 
particle  mediates  this  series  of  correlating  relations  which  is  mo- 
tion, and  the  velocity  changes,  then  the  acceleration  is  existential. 
Yet  it  can  be  defined  independently  of  the  supposition  that  it  is  so 
mediated,  as  the  above  discussion  makes  evident. 

Acceleration  is,  therefore,  itself  change ;  it  is  in  this  respect,  like 
motion,  a  whole.  Analysis  of  it  shows  that  it,  too,  like  motion, 
is  composed  of  complex  terms  which  are  neither  rest  nor  motion. 
They  are  just  what  they  are  —  complex  terms  consisting  of  a  one- 
one  relation  correlating  each  velocity  with  an  instant,  each  pRii 
with  an  i.  But  these  terms  form  a  series  corresponding  to  the 
time  series  with  which  they  are  correlated.  That  series  is,  then, 
continuous,  and  its  terms  are  infinite.  Specific  accelerations  can, 
like  velocities,  be  compared  and  their  difference  or  equality  ascer- 
tained. All  accelerations  are,  therefore,  magnitudes,  and  so  are  in 
one-one  correspondence  with  the  real  numbers,  for  all  accelerations 
are  possible,  though  not  existential.  A  specific  uniform  accelera- 
tion is,  then,  a  continuous  series  of  individual  velocities,  but  of 

>  See  the  previous  section. 


ATTACK  AND  REPLY  211 

all  velocities  between  certain  limits,  and  these  velocities  would 
ipso  facto  have,  between  such  limits,  the  natural  order  of  the  real 
numbers  with  which  they  are  in  one-one  correspondence.  If  the 
acceleration  is  uniform,  then,  if  there  is  an  acceleration  of  finite 
amount  a  in  the  time  b,  in  the  multiple  time  nb  there  will  be  a 
change  of  velocity  of  amount  na.1 

With  reference,  now,  to  the  attack  which  might  be  made  on 
the  analysis  both  of  velocity  and  of  acceleration  along  the  same 
lines  that  it  is  brought  against  the  analysis  of  motion,  it  is  evident 
that  it  is  invalidated  in  the  former  case  for  the  same  reasons  that 
it  is  in  the  latter.  Velocity  is  the  complex  term  composed  of 
the  correlating  relation  between  a  specific  point  and  a  specific 
instant,  together  with  the  magnitude  of  this  relation.  It  is,  then, 
neither  rest  nor  motion,  so  there  is  no  opportunity  for  the  attack 
here.  And  just  as  motion  is  this  continuous  series  of  complex 
terms,  themselves  related  asymmetrically  and  transitively,  so  is 
the  constancy  of  velocity  only  the  constancy  of  the  magnitude  of 
all  the  terms  of  this  series.  The  constancy  is  a  continuity  of  magni- 
tude. The  terms  together  with  the  asymmetrical,  transitive  rela- 
tions define  this  continuity  with  precision  and  adequacy.  Thus  de- 
fined, there  is  no  more  opportunity  for  introducing  a  discontinuity 
of  terms  or  of  'partitions/  and  so  of  claiming  contradiction  and 
falsification,  than  there  is  in  the  case  of  motion,  where  the  oppor- 
tunity is  found  to  be  negative. 

The  case  with  acceleration  is  similar.  Acceleration  is  change 
of  velocity.  Uniform  acceleration  is  continuous  change  of  velocity, 
but  in  neither  case  are  the  terms  either  change  or  rest.  They 
are  complexes,  velocities  in  one-one  correlation  with  specific  in- 
stants of  time.  But  no  one  such  complex  individual  is  either 
change  or  rest.  The  change  of  velocity,  the  acceleration,  is  the 
series  of  such  terms  related  asymmetrically  and  transitively,  and 
involves  a  one-one  correlation  with  the  instants  of  the  time  series. 
Absence  of  acceleration,  or  what  might  be  called  'resting  velocity,' 
is  analytically  a  many-one  correlation  of  one  velocity  with  many 

1  Cf .  this  section,  on  Numbers. 


212  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

instants.  In  no  way  is  there  opportunity  here  for  the  typical 
attack.  Further,  the  usual  typical  claim  that  this  analysis  in- 
troduces that  which  is  discontinuous  into  the  continuous,  in  that  it 
makes  the  terms  discrete  or  allows  of  a  'partition,'  is  but  another 
way  of  stating  the  very  continuity  of  uniform  acceleration.1  The 
attack  fails  here  also,  and  the  analysis  is  to  be  accepted  as  precise 
and  adequate,  and  is  to  be  interpreted  realistically.  Acceleration, 
like  velocity  and  motion,  is  not  a  mere  number.2  It  is  a  series  —  of 
complex  terms ;  it  exists  if  a  material  particle  moves  with  a  velocity 
which  is  not  constant,  otherwise  it  subsists.  All  accelerations, 
like  all  velocities,  are  logically  possible,  though  not  all  are  found  in 
or  implied  by  our  existential  world,  as  existing  or  even  as  possibly 
existing. 

DYNAMICS  AND  DURATION 

It  has  been  shown  in  the  above  discussion  of  the  analysis  of  mo- 
tion, of  velocity  and  of  acceleration,  that  these  entities,  once  dis- 
covered, can  be  defined  in  a  purely  logical  way  without  introducing 
existential  conditions  into  the  definitions.  The  science  which 
treats  of  these  entities  as  so  defined  is  Kinematics.  Such  entities 
do,  of  course,  exist  in  an  extremely  large  number  of  specific  in- 
stances, but  the  treatment  of  them  concerns  not  only  the  existen- 
tial, but  also  the  subsistential  cases.  Kinematics  is  logically  prior 
to  the  sciences  of  existential  motion,  velocities,  and  accelerations. 

The  preceding  discussion  puts  us  in  a  position  to  advance  to  the 
consideration  of  what  is  the  next  logical  step  in  the  grouping  of 
the  sciences  under  examination,  and  to  get  a  basis  for  the  refuta- 
tion of  still  another  attack  on  analysis,  namely,  that  attack  which 
Bergson  presents  in  his  doctrine  of  duration.3 

Motion,  velocity,  and  acceleration  have  been  discussed.  Thus 
far,  however,  there  has  been  no  discussion  of  causation.  Yet  exis- 
tentially,  in  the  specific  cases  where  these  entities  are  discovered, 

1  See  this  section,  on  Motion  and  on  Space. 

1  Cf.  Russell's  dissenting  statement,  Principles  of  Mathematics,  473. 

*  Creative  Evolution  and  Matter  and  Memory  in  numerous  places. 


DYNAMICS  AND  DURATION  213 

causes  are  found  to  operate  —  causes  for  motion,  for  a  change  of 
velocity  or  of  direction,  etc.,  etc.,  —  in  fact,  causes  in  general. 
Here,  however,  I  am  not  concerned  with  all  causes  or  even  with 
the  principle  of  causation,  but  only  with  one  type,  that,  namely, 
which  is  made  the  pivot  in  the  specific  attack  which  I  wish  to 
confute.  That  type  of  cause  is  that  one  in  virtue  of  which  an  effect 
at  any  time  whatsoever,  past,  present,  or  future,  near  or  remote,  can 
be  inferred  or  discovered.  The  position  taken  by  the  attacking 
party  here  is,  that  this  means  that  the  whole  temporal  series  of 
events,  that  is,  the  kind  of  temporal  series  to  which  analysis  leads, 
is  given  all  at  once,  now,  but  that  this  contradicts  the  very  nature 
of  time  as  lived,  as  experienced,  as  related  to,  and  so  as  constituting 
things  in  time.  As  lived  or  experienced,  etc.,  the  attack  continues, 
tune,  or  'duration,'  as  it  is  called,  is  not  given  all  at  once  —  now; 
but  life  and  experience  are  immersed  in  it,  and  it  is  immersed  in  them, 
in  such  a  way  that  it  is  only  a  now  and  a  now  and  a  now  that  is  actually 
lived,  although  each  now  is  an  accumulative  effect  of  all  that  has 
gone  before.  Since  the  time  with  which  analysis  deals  is  held  to 
contradict  in  this  way  the  time  as  lived,  and  the  latter  is  held  to  be 
reality,  the  attacking  party  concludes  that  analysis  falsifies  the 
original  nature  of  tune.  The  argument  is  not  different  in  form, 
then,  from  the  other  specific  attacks  which  we  have  considered. 
Thus  it  attacks  the  realistic  interpretation  of  tune  which  discovers 
in  it  an  entity  that  is  absolute  and  not  relative  and  that  is  genuinely 
independent  of  existents.  I  shall  show,  however,  that  this  spe- 
cific attack  presupposes  this  very  realistic  interpretation  and  so 
contradicts  itself.  To  that  task  I  now  set  myself. 

First,  let  us  consider  in  some  further  detail  the  position  which 
is  attacked.  That  position  is  one  which  introduces  into,  or  adds 
to  the  analysis  which  we  have  so  far  considered,  the  concept  of 
causation  and  even  of  change  in  general.  The  attack  is  directed, 
then,  against  that  body  of  analysis  which  is  called  Dynamics. 
Or,  indeed,  further  than  this,  the  attack  is  made  also  on  that  body 
of  analysis  which  introduces  still  more  specific  causes  and  con- 
ditions than  does  Dynamics,  namely,  Mechanics. 


214  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

Motion  may  be  vaguely  said  to  be  change  of  position  —  in  time, 
of  course.  But  this  change  of  position  can  be  accurately  and 
adequately  analyzed.  There  are,  however,  other  kinds  of  changes, 
as,  for  example,  change  of  velocity  and  qualitative  changes.  In 
fact  change  in  general  is  not  only  genus  to  any  specific  type  of 
change,  but  is  logically  prior  to  it.  Any  specific  type  of  change, 
such  as  chemical  reactions,  electrical  and  thermic  events,  involves 
time,  and  can  be  referred  to  it  as  the  independent  variable.1  Put 
in  familiar  scientific  terms,  this  means  that,  with  any  qualitative 
change  measured,  and  the  time  in  which  it  takes  place  also  meas- 
ured, the  average  velocity  of  the  change  can  be  determined,  and 
the  whole  process  treated  in  perfect  analogy  to  the  treatment 
of  motion.  Thus,  the  average  velocity  of  a  chemical  reaction 

is  the  limit,  ^,  of  the  ratio  amount  of  new  substance  produced, 
dt  time  taken  for  this 

that  is,  a;i~     .    To  make  certain  that  this  is  not  simply  an  average, 
tz  — t\ 

but  is  a  constant  velocity  holding  good  for  any  instant  of  time, 
or  to  ascertain  that  there  is  a  uniform  acceleration  here, 
demands  the  same  observations,  etc.,  as  for  motion.2  Once  ascer- 
tained, however,  the  change,  the  velocity,  or  the  acceleration  can 
be  defined  without  introducing  these  conditions  into  the  definition. 
Further,  and  important,  exactly  the  same  interpretation  of  all 
these  'non-motion'  changes  must  be  made  as  is  made  of  change  of 
position.  The  terms  are  neither  rests  nor  changes.  They  are  com- 
plex terms  of  one-one  correlating  relations  between  the  instants  of 
time  and  some  qualitative  entity  (which  may  in  turn  be  complex) 
—  with  these  complex  terms  themselves  related  asymmetrically 
and  transitively.  The  whole  series,  with  all  its  terms  and  rela- 
tions, is  the  change. 

In  customary  scientific  language  any  finite  change  x  is,  then,  a 
function  of  a  certain  specific  time  t  as  the  independent  variable, 
and  can  be  graphically  represented  by  the  '  time  chart ' : 

1  See  this  section,  on  Relations. 

*  See  the  three  previous  divisions  of  this  section. 


TIME  CHART 


215 


0 


dx 
Not  only  can  the  first  derivative,  — ,  that  is,  the  velocity  of  any 

Civ 

d?x 

change,  be  thus  represented,  but  also  the  second  derivative,  — , 

ctt 

the  change  of  this  velocity,  and,  theoretically,  the  higher  deriva- 

dnx 

tives,  - — ,  although  those  beyond  the  second  are  seldom  used. 
dtn 

All  this  is  important  as  leading  up  to  the  presentation  of  the 
meaning  of  a  dynamical  system  and  of  making  clear  the  position 
which  is  attacked  by  the  doctrine  of  '  duration.' 

The  'time  chart'  makes  use  of  only  two  coordinates,  and  these 
are  all  that  it  needs.  But  to  determine  one  of  these  coordinates, 
x,  three  or  more  coordinates  may  be  necessary.  Thus,  to  determine 
the  extent  of  any  specific  motion,  three  coordinates  forming  one 
'  frame  of  reference '  are  necessary,  although,  once  determined,  this 
extent  can  be  represented  on  one  coordinate,  referring  the  motion, 
with  either  its  constant  velocity  or  acceleration,  to  time.  Suppose 


216  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

such  a  determination  to  be  made  for  any  specific  change  whatso- 
ever, for  example,  for  any  qualitative  change,  or  for  the  change  of 
velocity  of  any  such  change;  that  is,  let  the  amount  of  the  change 
be  determined  and  represented  on  the  'time  chart.'  Then,  on  the 
assumption  that  the  objective  change,  represented  by  the  chart, 
is  continuous  —  and  this  is  the  supposition  at  this  point  in  our 
discussion  —  the  state  of  affairs  at  any  instant  k,  before,  after, 
or  between  the  instants  t  and  ti  is  determinable,  and  the  objective 
change  is,  of  course,  determined  or  caused.  This  gives  a  view  of 
causation  which  differs  quite  radically  from  the  traditional  view.1 
Briefly,  it  means  that  in  a  continuous  change  of  any  kind,  imply- 
ing the  one-one  correlation  between  the  instants  of  time  and  the 
points  of  space,  or  of  that  which,  as  specified  by  coordinates,  is  the 
equivalent  of  a  point,  namely,  a  configuration,  any  five  terms  of 
the  group  of  terms,  C,  C\,  C2,  t,  ti,  &,  determine  a  sixth.  Pre- 
sented as  a  formula  this  means  that  C  =  F  (Ci,  t\,  Cz,  U,  O-2 

All  this  may  now  be  made  somewhat  clearer.  First,  a  dis- 
tinction must  be  made  between  the  cognitive  determination  or 
specification  of  the  value  of  the  terms  concerned,  and  the  causal 
determination.  Thus,  hi  the  above  formula,  if  the  terms  to  the 
right  are  known,  C  can  be  ascertained.  But  the  knowledge  will 
be  correct,  provided  only  there  is  a  genuine  objective  causal  de- 
termination, of  the  kind  above  defined,  between  the  configurations 
at  any  two  times  and  that  at  a  third  time.  It  is  the  objective 
thing  that  we  wish  to  consider  now,  distinguishing  it  from  the 
knowledge  of  it.  Making  this  distinction,  and  adhering  to  it,  the 
statement  made  just  above  concerning  causation  can  be  expanded 
as  follows : 

1.  In  the  case  of  a  material  particle  moving  with  constant  ve- 
locity, the  velocity  at  any  instant  is  determined  or  caused  by  the 
velocity  at  any  other  two  instants. 

2.  In  the  case  of  the  uniform  acceleration  of  the  motion  of  a 
body,  both  the  motion  and  the  acceleration  for  any  finite  tune  be- 

»  See  Russell,  op.  tit.,  LIV,  LV,  LVI,  LVII  et  passim. 
1  See  Russell,  ibid.,  486. 


CAUSATION  217 

tween  any  two  instants,  t\— k,  is  determined  by  the  acceleration  for 
any  other  finite  time,  tx— tv,  before,  after,  or  within  h— U,  where  x 
and  y  are  definite  and  specific.1 

3.  Exactly  the  same  statement  holds  of  changes  which  are  not 
motions,  and  of  their  velocities  and  accelerations;  or,  since  ac- 
celeration is  change  of  velocity,  the  statements  hold  good  of 
change  in  general,  provided  it  is  continuous.  If  it  be  continuous, 
no  matter  what  its  nature  may  be,  the  principle  of  causation  which 
we  are  discussing  may  be  expressed  in  the  above  formula. 

The  simplest  existential  case  of  such  causation  is  the  motion  of 
a  material  particle,  but  all  sorts  of  complex  cases  are  also  possible, 
and  the  same  principle  holds  for  them.  For,  no  matter  how  com- 
plex and  varied  the  factors  in  a  state  of  affairs  may  be,  they  can 
be  specified  by  the  use  of  coordinates,  and  these  coordinates  de- 
termine what  is  logically  equivalent  to  a  point.  That  a  complex 
state  of  affairs  can  be  so  specified  presupposes  that  it  is  objectively 
specific  in  some  such  sense  as  the  coordinates  indicate. 

Now  there  are  actually  a  great  many  other  factors  involved  in 
the  objective  specification  of  a  system  of  the  kind  we  are  consid- 
ering; but  we  need  not  examine  these  in  any  detail  in  order  to  make 
our  point  against  the  attack  to  which  we  are  replying.  Suffice 
it  to  say,  that  a  very  complex  system  can  in  due  time,  by  means  of 
the  composition  of  vectors,  the  Hamiltonian  principle,  etc.,  be 
specified  by  three  coordinates.2  A  change  in  these  coordinates, 
representing  a  change  of  any  kind,  can  be  represented  subsequently 
on  the  time  chart  as  if  it  were  a  change  of  position. 

With  the  distinction  between  the  object  known  and  the  knowing 
granted,  and  with  it  also  granted  that  there  is  an  objective  causal 
determination  of  the  kind  just  defined,  in  reality  complex,  yet 
capable  of  a  simplifying  treatment,  it  follows  that,  if  the  numerical 
value  of  the  configurations  at  two  times  be  known,  the  configura- 
tion at  any  other  time,  be  it  ever  so  complex,  can  also  become 

1  The  acceleration  is  determinable,  i.e.,  known,  however,  only  if  x  and  y  are  known: 
then  three  quantities  or  values  will  be  determinable. 

1  Cf.,  e.g.,  Webster,  L.  G.,  The  Dynamics  of  a  Particle,  1908. 


218  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

known  —  if,  as  is  assumed,  the  change  is  continuous.  It  is  by 
dealing  with  things  in  this  manner,  therefore,  that  time  does  seem  to  be 
defied  in  some  way,  even  as  the  attacking  party  claims,  and  that 
at  the  present  moment,  as  it  were,  we  can  reach  out  indefinitely 
into  both  past  and  future,  so  that  everything  is  given  now.  And 
this  does  seem  to  furnish  a  marked  contrast  with  experiences  in  our 
own  lives  which  we  must  wait  upon  with  infinite  patience  and  self- 
control,  or  which  are  irrevocable.  But  there  is  a  serious  ambiguity 
in  the  contrast,  and  so,  also,  in  the  conclusion  drawn  from  it, — 
for  it  is  on  the  basis  of  this  contrast  that  the  specific  attack  under 
consideration  is  made.  The  analysis  which  leads  to  this  bringing 
of  the  past  and  the  future  into  the  very  present,  and  which  in  this 
sense  seems  to  do  away  with  all  real  time  distinctions,  can  only  be 
a  falsification,  the  attacking  party  holds,  of  real  time  or  duration. 
We  shall  shortly  demonstrate,  however,  that  this  attack  involves 
much  confusion  and  is  quite  easily  refuted. 

That  analysis,  however,  which  is  thus  accused  of  foreshortening 
both  past  and  future  to  the  confines  of  the  present,  contains 
many  elements,  and  these,  in  accordance  with  the  previously  pre- 
sented series  of  sciences,  may  now  be  distinguished  to  advantage. 

The  science  of  numbers,  of  tune,  of  space,  and  of  motion  have 
each  been  considered  in  detail.  Motion  can  be  defined,  it  has  been 
found,  in  a  purely  logical  manner,  and  the  science  of  motion  thus 
defined  is  Kinematics.  Kinematics  is  applied  when  there  are 
actual  particles  of  matter  moving,  but  pure  Kinematics  is  logi- 
cally prior  to  such  an  application.  In  Dynamics,  to  distinguish 
it  from  Kinematics,  causation  and  configurations  of  entities  are 
taken  into  consideration.  The  configurations  might  in  pure 
Dynamics  be  limited  to  positions  and  motions,  or  to  some  kind  of 
equilibrium  or  change,  or  to  any  combination  of  these,  and  then, 
by  specifying  any  two  of  these  at  the  times  t  and  t\,  a  third  at  U 
would  be  specifiable,  if  the  change  were  continuous. 

But  in  applied  Dynamics  the  configurations  would  only  be  of 
a  certain  type,  each  configuration,  specifiable  by  coordinates, 
being  correlated  with  a  specific  instant  of  time,  itself  specified  in 


KINEMATICS,   DYNAMICS  AND  MECHANICS    219 

relation  to  our  actual  existent  world;  that  is,  the  configurations 
would  be  only  those  which  we  find  empirically  in  our  actual  world. 
But  here  the  changes  are  not  continuous,  or,  rather,  not  unlimited, 
although  they  are  continuous  between  certain  limits,  so  that,  were 
the  inference  made  that  at  a  certain  time  it,  beyond  a  certain  finite 
period  between  t  and  t\,  a  certain  configuration  would  be  deter- 
minate and  discoverable,  this  inference  would  be  in  error.1  The  exis- 
tential world  does  not  seem  in  respect  to  all  of  its  attributes  to  be 
of  a  uniformly  continuous  character.  Rather,  there  seem  to  be  dis- 
continuity, critical  points,  both  in  the  temporal  series  of  natural  and 
artificial  processes  and  in  formal  synthesis.  Thus,  for  example,  an 
organism  presents  at  certain  stages  of  its  development  seemingly 
quite  new  characters,  a  physico-chemical  substance  goes  through 
critical  points  in  passing  from  the  gaseous  to  the  liquid  and  solid 
states,  and  the  synthesis  of  chemical  compounds  out  of  components 
leads  to  the  appearance  of  new  properties. 

Pure  Dynamics,  however,  finds  no  place  for  these  discontinuities. 
It  introduces  the  concept  of  cause,  and  adheres  to  the  principle  of 
continuity.  It  can  construct  any  number  of  dynamical  systems; 
but  only  one  of  these  accords  with  the  actual  world,  and  this  is 
one  which  allows  of  the  application  of  pure  Dynamics  only  within 
certain  specific  ranges  whose  limits  are  empirically  determined. 

Thus,  with  Dynamics  introducing  the  concept  of  causation,  the 
next  step  in  the  series  of  sciences  is  the  specification  of  the  types 
of  causation.  If  these  are  made  the  attraction  and  repulsion  of 
material  bodies, — attraction  in  the  inverse  square  of  the  distance, 
repulsion  in  accordance  with  the  'laws  of  motion/  we  then  have 
the  Newtonian  Mechanics.  Make  the  law  of  attraction  in  some 
other  ratio,  that  is,  allow  for  any  ratio,  and  we  have  a  general- 
ized, a  pure  Mechanics.  But  the  law  of  inverse  squares,  for  ex- 
ample, is  found  empirically  not  to  hold  for  all  distances;  thus,  it 
does  not  apply  to  intramolecular  distances.  Such  limitations 
bring  us  to  the  realm  of  Physics.  With  certain  limiting  points,  and, 
therefore,  ranges  of  qualitatively  different  phenomena  empirically 

1  Cf.  Montague,  this  volume. 


220  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

determined,  Arithmetic,  Geometry,  Kinematics,  Dynamics,  and 
Mechanics  are  applied,  and  are  presupposed,  each  by  each,  in  the 
inverse  of  the  order  named.  But,  conversely,  each  one  of  these 
does  not  imply  the  propositions  of  the  subsequently  named  science. 
Each  of  these  sciences  is  a  science  of  a  certain  stratum  of  reality, 
as  it  were.  Each  stratum  has  its  peculiar  characteristics  which 
can  be  discovered  only  empirically,  and  cannot  be  deduced  from 
the  characteristics  of  the  preceding  stratum,  but  each  of  the  logi- 
cally, and,  possibly,  also  temporally  subsequent  strata  is  com- 
patible with  the  existence,  or  subsistence  of  the  prior  strata,  and 
so  allows  of  the  application  to  its  phenomena  of  the  sciences 
which  treat  of  the  prior  phenomena. 

In  this  way  we  might  continue,  and  consider  the  character  of 
Chemistry,  of  Physiology,  etc.,  in  their  relation  to  the  sciences 
which  we  have  considered,  but  for  our  purposes  we  do  not  need  to 
do  this.  Suffice  it  to  say  of  the  relation  of  these  sciences  to  the  ones 
already  discussed,  that  they  presuppose  the  facts  which  these 
other  sciences  treat  of,  but  are  not  implied  by  them.  Each  science 
in  the  order  given  is  presupposed  by  the  facts  of  the  subsequent 
ones,  but  their  facts  are  not  implied  by  its  facts.  Certain  of  the 
facts  of  each  science  are  peculiar  to  it,  and  can  be  discovered  only 
empirically.  But  once  discovered,  not  only  are  these  facts  found 
to  presuppose  other  facts,  and  so  to  demand  the  application  of  the 
preceding  sciences,  but  they  set  limits  to  this  application.  Specific 
laws  hold  good  only  within  certain  ranges.  Phenomena  within 
these  ranges  are  arithmetical,  spatial,  temporal ;  they  sometimes 
are  changes  with  velocities  and  accelerations ;  they  are  caused,  and 
they  are  continuous.  But  the  continuity  is  limited  by  the  limits 
of  the  range.  At  these  limits  there  is  discontinuity,  between 
them  continuity.  This  seems  to  be  the  actual  status  of  the  exis- 
tential world.  Phenomena  exist  or  take  place  in  different  strata. 
Laws  are  limited  in  the  range  of  their  validity,  because  the  con- 
tinuity of  phenomena  of  which  they  are  laws  is  limited.  There 
is,  then,  an  existential  pluralism.  Certain  phenomena  presuppose 
others,  which  in  turn  do  not  imply  them,  but  can  be  conceived 


DISCONTINUITIES  221 

and  discovered  as  lacking  them.  The  former  limit  the  range  of 
the  validity  or  application  of  the  laws  of  the  latter,  the  latter 
apply  within  a  certain  range,  because  they  are  presupposed. 
Thus  we  get  a  logical  or  an  ontological  pluralism,  with  different 
strata  of  entities,  —  numbers,  points,  instants,  logical  motion, 
material  particles,  causes,  specific  kinds  of  causes,  etc. 

The  fact,  however,  that  the  actual  world  of  physical,  chemical, 
and  physiological  fact  is  neither  purely  kinematical,  nor  dynami- 
cal, nor  mechanical,  etc.,  but  is  discontinuous  at  certain  points, 
does  not  do  away  with  the  possibility  of  the  attack  which  we  are 
considering.  For  the  discontinuities  can  be  bridged  empirically,  — 
this  is  part  of  the  task  of  analysis,  —  and  the  relation  between  two 
discontinuous  ranges  of  phenomena  ascertained.  Then,  on  the  sup- 
position that  this  functional  relation  always  holds  good  under  the 
same  conditions,  the  claim  can  be  made  once  more  that  past  and 
present  and  future,  to  an  all-inclusive  extent,  are  given  now,  at  the 
present  time.  For  example,  the  vapor  pressure  of  a  solid  increases 
at  a  continuous  rate  with  rising  temperature,  until,  at  its  melting 
point,  the  pressure  suddenly  increases  at  a  new  rate.  This  is  the 
critical  point,  and  is  constant  if  the  external  pressure  compensating 
the  internal  is  constant,  though  it  varies  as  the  latter  varies.  The 

dj) 

derivative,  ~,  has  two  values  at  this  critical  point.    The  ratio  between 
dv 

these  values  remains  constant,  or  changes  continuously,  according 
as  the  external  pressure  remains  constant,  or  changes  continuously. 
Or,  at  least,  the  ratio  is  assumed  so  to  remain.  On  this  basis,  not- 
withstanding the  discontinuities  in  nature,  we  can  reach  out  into 
the  past  and  future  and  have  them  given  now,  quite  as  well  as  if 
all  nature  were  continuous  without  limit.  We  have  only  to  say, 
Continuity  up  to  a  certain  point,  discontinuity  at  that  point, 
continuity  beyond  it,  and  the  ratio  remaining  the  same,  or  itself 
changing  continuously,  in  order  to  bring  a  discontinuous  field  of 
future  or  past  phenomena  within  our  present  ken  as  readily  as  we 
could  an  all-inclusive  continuous  field.  Only,  if  there  are  these 
existential  discontinuities,  they  cannot  be  discovered  deductively, 


222  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

but  only  inductively,  which  means  that  there  are  existential  rea- 
sons which  necessitate  an  inductive  procedure. 

Reply  can  now  be  made  to  the  specific  attack  on  the  analysis  of 
time,  and  to  the  claim  that  duration  is  the  real  entity.  Through 
analysis  future  and  past  do  seem  to  be  given  now  —  in  some  sense. 
That  must  be  admitted.  In  fact,  both  attack  and  defense  do  admit 
it.  But  the  attack  claims  that  for  this  reason  the  very  nature  of 
time  (as  duration)  is  vitiated  and  contradicted,  in  fact  that  it  is 
thus  'detemporalized'  and  falsified  !  For,  it  is  held,  time  as  lived, 
etc.,  that  is,  as  duration,  cannot  be  so  manipulated.  It,  real  time, 
demands  that  we  wait  with  patience  for  the  occurrence  of  that 
which  we  desire.  Time  manipulates  us,  not  conversely.  In  just 
this  sense  it  forms  an  integral  part  of  the  actual  course  of  events, 
to  be  separated  from  them  only  at  the  cost  of  falsifying  its  real 
nature. 

Now  in  this  attack  the  validity  of  the  specific  analysis  of  time 
into  instants  is  not  directly  impugned,  or,  at  most,  it  is  at- 
tacked only  subsequently  to  the  specific  attack  now  under  con- 
sideration. I  shall  show,  however,  that  that  very  analysis  is 
presupposed  by  this  latter  attack.  Indeed,  that  there  is  a  certain 
difference  between  time  as  analyzed  out  and  time  as  lived  must,  I 
think,  be  admitted,  though  it  may  not  be  a  difference  in  time  qua 
time,  but  only  one  between  specific,  individual  periods  of  time. 
The  attacking  party  admits  this  difference  in  the  distinction  which 
he  grants  and  emphasizes  between  processes  which,  he  insists,  hav- 
ing taken  place  in  the  past,  are  organically  incorporated  or  sum- 
marized in  the  present,  or  which  mil  take  place,  and  those  which 
are  taking  place  and  being  lived  now.  But  this  makes  it  evident 
that  he  finds  no  difficulty  in  somehow  getting  into  some  parts  or 
periods  of  a  time  series  which  are  different  from,  or  other  than  the 
present,  and  clearly,  he  must  grant  the  same  privilege  to  the  defend- 
ing party.  In  fact  this  distinction  is  implied  in  identifying  the 
present  as  the  present.  But  this  distinction,  which  the  attack- 
ing party  insists  upon,  is  only  the  distinction  between  perceptual 
time  and  conceptual.  He  himself  grants  both  of  these  kinds  of 


DURATION  EXAMINED  223 

time  in  making  his  attack,  but  argues  and  concludes  that  the 
former  alone  is  real,  the  latter  falsification. 

In  reply  to  this  I  shall  show  that  that  very  characteristic  which 
is  most  emphasized  in  this  attack,  namely,  that  which,  put  con- 
cretely, is  called  the  living  now,  and,  put  abstractly,  is  the  'unma- 
nipulatableness '  of  time,  really  demands  the  validity  of  the  analysis 
of  time  out  of  the  complex  of  things  in  time,  and,  further,  the  analy- 
sis into  instants,  and  the  realistic  view  of  time.  Stated  briefly,  this 
can  be  done  by  showing  that  it  is  only  the  realistic  view  of  time 
and  this  twofold  analysis  that  account  for  the  very  characteris- 
tics and  attributes  which  the  attacking  party  is  emphasizing.  For, 
assume  the  hypothesis  (to  see  how  it  works),  that  time  is  an  entity 
which  subsists  independently  of  things  in  time,  and  that  accord- 
ingly it  can  be  analyzed  out  of  the  complex,  '  things  in  time ' ;  then 
it  follows  that  there  is  a  very  interesting  and  important  difference 
between  the  whole  time  series  as  treated  conceptually,  and  certain 
time  periods  as  experienced  now,  —  call  these  duration.  For,  by 
this  assumption,  this  very  difference,  this  very  characteristic  which 
is  so  emphasized  in  the  living  now,  this  compulsion  on  us  to  be 
patient  and  wait  for  things  to  develop  s  ep  by  step,  arises  from 
the  one-one  correlation  of  specific  events  with  those  specific  instants  or 
periods  (in  the  larger  time  series}  which  are  the  now.  The  now  is  just 
this  specific  time  period,  consisting  of  these,  and  not  those  specific  in- 
dividual instants  in  a  larger  time  series,  and  in  this  sense  cannot  be 
manipulated.  This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  same  hypothesis 
accounts  for  the  distinction  between  perceived  time  and  conceptual 
time — a  distinction  which  the  attacking  party  tacitly  insists  upon 
and  uses.  But  the  time  as  time  in  the  two  cases  is  not  different.  It 
is  only  the  periods  or  the  individual  parts  that  are  different.  For 
analysis  shows  time  to  be  a  series,  its  terms  to  be  instants,  its  re- 
lating relations  to  be  asymmetrical  and  transitive.  It  is  absolute 
and  not  relative.  It  subsists  whether  anything  exists  in  it  or  not, 
and  whether  it  is  known  or  not.  This  is  the  realistic  view  of  time. 
Assume  this  hypothesis,  and  then,  if  specific  existential  events  take 
place,  they  take  place  in  correlation  with  specific  individual  in- 


224  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

slants  constituting  definite  individual  periods  of  time.  This  cor- 
relation is  fixed,  it  cannot  be  altered.  If  the  events  are  those  of  a 
conscious  organism,  then  they  are  to  be  lived  now  with  waiting, 
with  patience,  preceding  their  arrival  at  a  fixed  period  of  the  time 
series.  If  they  are  now  past  events,  they  are  also  fixed  in  the 
time  series,  with  a  definite  temporal  distance  and  a  causal  relation 
between  them  and  existential  events  now,  and  so,  also,  if  they 
are  future  events.  The  assumption  accounts  for  the  very  things 
most  emphasized  by  the  attacking  party.  But  knowing  can  reach 
out  to  this  past  and  future,  can,  within  certain  empirical  limits  of 
accuracy,  get  at  the  many  events  in  them  in  the  temporal  order, 
while  the  living,  the  perceiving,  as  an  event,  is  limited  to  the  now. 
The  two  are  different,  the  distinction  is  justified.  But  it  is  ac- 
counted for,  and  along  with  it  the  Bergsonian  doctrine  of  duration, 
only  by  the  hypothesis  of  an  independent  time  series,  in  fact,  by 
the  whole  realistic  view  of  time.  Time  is  an  independent  series. 
It  can  be  analyzed  out,  because  it  is  already  out.  It  is  not  an  in- 
tegral part  of  a  complex  which  cannot  be  analyzed  without  falsi- 
fication. Things  are  in  time,  but  it  is  not  in  them  except  in  the 
sense  that  existents  are  correlated  with  specific  instants.  Their 
temporal  position  is  fixed  as  a  configuration  C  correlated  with  a 
present  time  t,  and  in  a  many-one  relation  with  this  t  and  two  con- 
figurations Ci  and  C2  correlated  with  ti  and  k,  past  or  future.  This 
is  really  an  analytical  statement  of  Bergson's  doctrine  of  duration. 
The  latter  presupposes  for  its  own  explanation  the  very  view  of 
time  which  it  purposes  to  attack  —  presupposes  the  validity  of  the 
very  distinction  which  it  itself  is  compelled  to  make. 

I  conclude,  then,  that  that  attack  on  the  analysis  of  time  which 
claims  that  the  time  analyzed  out  is  detemporalized,  spatialized, 
falsified,  etc.,  is  itself  false.  The  discovery  of  time  as  an  entity 
which  is  independent  of  things  in  it  and  of  its  analysis  into  instants 
stands  as  valid.  In  fact,  only  this  realistic  interpretation  both  of 
time  as  a  whole  and  of  its  analysis  accounts  for  those  very  features 
which  are  emphasized  in  this  specific  attack  against  such  a  dis- 
covery and  analysis. 


ATOMS  225 

6.  Other  Classes  of  Individuals,  Atoms,  etc. — My  general  scheme 
now  brings  me  to  the  consideration  of  a  new  type  of  whole  lying 
within  this  class  of  classes  which  are  composed  of  individuals,  a 
type,  namely,  whose  analysis  to  a  large  extent  is  experimental, 
although  not  exclusively  so.  This  type  of  whole  is  well  illustrated 
by  any  finite  quantity  of  any  pure  chemical  substance.  Such  an 
actually  existent  whole  in  any  specific  instance  is  not  identical 
with  the  class-concept  which  denotes  the  class  of  which  it  is  a 
member.  The  concept  iron  is  not  iron,  the  concept  mercury  is 
not  mercury,  any  more  than  the  class-concept  number  is  a  number. 
The  defense  of  the  analysis  of  wholes  of  this  type  constitutes, 
among  other  things,  a  defense  of  the  atomic  theory  and  of  those 
theories  which,  like  the  molecular  and  electron,  are  allied  with 
this.1 

I  need  not  relate,  indeed,  not  even  classify  all  the  experiments 
which  can  be  made  in  the  laboratory,  and  all  the  additional  evi- 
dence, experimental  and  other,  which  shows  that  a  chemical  sub- 
stance consists  of  parts  called  atoms.  I  shall  consider  such  ex- 
periments and  evidence  only  so  far  as  is  necessary  in  order  to 
make  a  defense. 

The  proposition  that  each  pure  chemical  substance  consists  of 
atoms  is  a  conclusion  which  is  reached  through  a  hypothetical 
syllogism  of  the  general  form :  If  p  alone  implies  q,  and  q  is,  then 
p  is ;  that  is,  if  p  is  the  only  hypothesis  which  explains  q  or.  a  num- 
ber of  q's,  and  these  exist,  then  p  exists.2  This  seems  to  con- 
trovert the  usual  rule  for  the  hypothetical  syllogism  according  to 
which  the  affirmation  of  the  subsequent  does  not  imply  the  affirm- 
ation of  the  antecedent ;  but  in  reality  it  does  not.  The  assertion 
of  the  subsequent  carries  with  it  the  assertion  of  the  antecedent 
provided  an  unequivocal  connection  between  antecedent  and  con- 
sequent is  established  whereby  it  is  shown  that,  although  many 
p's  might  explain  one  q,  only  one  p  can  account  for  may  q's.  The 

1  This  essay,  Section  V. 

1  Cf.  Marvin,  W.  T.,  The  Existential  Proposition,  Jour,  of  Phil.,  Psychol,  etc., 
1911,  8,  447-491. 
Q 


226  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

conclusion  that  p  exists,  if  it  explains  existing  g's,  is  valid,  if  other 
hypotheses  are  excluded  through  the  fact  that  one  and  only  one  p 
accounts  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  for  all  the  known 
facts,  for  all  the  q's.  This  is  the  type  of  reasoning  which  we  have, 
now,  in  the  establishment  of  the  atomic  theory.  Experimental 
analysis  reveals  many  q's,  many  existential  facts.  The  only  hy- 
pothesis which  explains  them  is  the  atomic,  which  means  an  analy- 
sis of  the  whole  into  parts  called  atoms. 

For  the  sake  of  making  my  presentation  specific,  I  shall  state 
some  of  the  important  facts  l  which  the  analysis  into  atoms  ex- 
plains : 

(a)  Pure  substances  combine  in  constant  mass-proportions,  no 
matter  how  small  the  quantities  are  which  are  worked  with  ex- 
perimentally. This  would  be  explained  if  larger  masses  are  only 
multiples  of  some  ultimate  units  between  which  the  same  mass- 
proportions  hold. 

(6)  Certain  substances  combine  in  more  than  one  proportion, 
but  these  proportions  are  rational  or  integral.  This  would  be  ex- 
plained if  there  are  parts  between  which  rational  ratios  hold. 
But  such  ratios  imply  finite  quantities  —  though  these  be  very 
small. 

(c)  Certain  substances  combine  with  other  substances  in  mini- 
mum ratios.     This  would  be  explained  by  the  hypothesis  that 
there  are  ultimate  units  which  are  the  smallest  that  can  enter  into 
combination  with  the  units  of  other  elements. 

(d)  Substances  which  can  be  gasified  exert  pressure  on  the  walls 
of  the  containing  vessel,  —  the  same  pressure  on  each  wall.    For 
equal  volumes  this  pressure  varies  directly  with  the  temperature. 
These  facts  are  explained  by  the  hypothesis  (1)  that  there  are  parts, 
acting  as  wholes,  in  motion,  and  striking  the  walls  of  the  vessel 
with  a  certain  momentum,  and  (2)  that  the  velocity  of  each  part, 
and  so  the  momentum,  varies  with  the  temperature.     These  parts 
might  be  either  ultimate  units  or  simple  multiples  of  these. 

(e)  Equal  volumes  of  gases  at  the  same  temperature  exert  differ- 

1  Cf.,  e.g.,  Jones,  H.  C.,  Elements  of  Physical  Chemistry,  1907. 


EVIDENCE  FOR  ATOMS  227 

ent  pressures.  This  would  be  explained  if  the  gases  consist  of 
moving  parts,  —  the  same  in  number  in  all  gases  of  equal  volumes 
at  the  same  temperature,  — which  are  of  the  same  mass  in  any  one 
gas,  but  of  different  mass  in  different  gases.  Then  the  velocity 
would  be  the  same.  These  different  masses  might  be  in  the  same 
ratio  as  are  the  combining  proportions  of  the  substances  in  ques- 
tion. 

(/)  Equal  volumes  of  gases  at  the  same  pressure  are  of  different 
temperatures.  This  would  be  explained  if  the  gas  consists  of 
moving  parts,  the  same  in  number  in  all  gases  of  equal  volume  at 
the  same  pressure,  but  with  motions  of  different  velocity.  The 
masses  would  be  the  same. 

(flf)  The  data  of  (e)  and  (/)  are  together  explainable  only  if  in 
different  gases  at  the  same  temperature  and  pressure  both  the 
masses  and  the  velocities  of  the  parts  are  different.  The  velocities 
must  be  if  the  masses  are.  And  the  masses  are  different  —  as 
'  combining  proportions '  show. 

(h)  That  the  volumes,  pressures,  and  temperatures  of  two  gases 
should  be  the  same,  but  the  masses  and  velocities  different,  is 
explainable,  if  equal  volumes  of  gases,  at  the  same  temperature  and 
pressure,  contain  the  same  number  of  parts,  either  ultimate  parts, 
or  complexes  acting  as  units.  (Avagadro's  hypothesis.) 

(i)  That  equal  volumes  of  gases  (in  certain  cases),  at  the  same 
pressure  and  temperature,  combine  in  definite  proportions  is  ex- 
plainable by  the  same  hypothesis. 

These  examples  of  the  actual  analyses  which  are  made  by  way 
of  establishing  the  atomic  and  molecular  theories  are  sufficient  to 
make  my  point  clear.  The  data  cited  are  themselves  analytical 
results.  They  involve  the  distinction  between  volume,  pressure, 
temperature,  between  different  substances,1  etc.,  etc.  But  these 
specific  distinctions  are  seldom  attacked.  The  analyses  cited  and 
their  results  lead  to  or  demand  another  analysis,  that  of  a  pure 
chemical  substance  into  parts  called  atoms,  or,  all  taken  together, 
they  are  this  analysis. 

1  Cf.  Section  IV  of  this  essay. 


228  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

Put  in  the  form  of  our  schematic  syllogism,  the  data  discovered 
by  analysis,  that  is,  the  data  of  definite  proportions,  of  pressure, 
etc.,  are  a  set  of  '  existential  q's.'  They  are  facts,  and  in  that  sense 
are  affirmed  or  asserted.  But  their  assertion  carries  with  it  the 
assertion  of  the  one  hypothesis  which,  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge,  is  the  only  one  that  will  explain  them  all.  Any  other 
hypothesis  is  excluded,  since  no  other  one  hypothesis  will  explain 
the  manifold  of  data,  found  independently,  and  to  be  explained. 
Then  the  entities,  the  atoms,  which  that  hypothesis  denotes,  are 
to  be  accepted  as  real  in  exactly  the  same  sense  as  are  the  data 
which  they  explain. 

But  this  outline  of  that  analysis  which  leads  to  the  atomic 
theory,  and,  as  the  realist  would  say,  to  the  discovery  of  atoms,  is 
typical,  as  is  also  the  kind  of  whole  which  is  analyzed.  This  kind 
of  whole  is  found  in  any  actually  existing  pure  chemical  substance. 
Such  a  substance  or  whole  is  made  up  of  particles,  of  molecules, 
of  atoms,  and  perhaps,  finally,  of  electrons.  A  current  of  elec- 
tricity, the  cathode  rays,  the  «,  /3,  and  y  emanations  from  radium, 
etc.,  would  also  seem  to  be  such  wholes — wholes  whose  parts  are  all 
alike.  And  the  analysis  outlined  is  typical  of  the  various  specific 
analyses  which  are  made.  The  existence  of  various  data  found 
by  experiment  is  explained  only  by  the  existence  of  certain  parts. 

Now  in  the  case  of  certain  analyses  previously  considered  the 
typical  argument  has  been  advanced  against  their  realistic  inter- 
pretation, that  the  parts  or  terms  to  which  analysis  leads  are  the 
contradictories  of  the  whole,  and  that  accordingly  the  analysis 
falsifies.  This  attack  has  been  found  to  fail  in  every  case  so  far 
examined.  Does  it  fail  here  also  in  the  case  of  atoms,  electrons, 
etc.? 

The  reply  is,  that  in  this  case  there  is  scarcely  opportunity  to 
make  this  typical  attack.  Molecule,  atom,  electron  do  not  seem 
prima  facie  to  be  the  contradictories  of  the  whole  of  which  they  are 
the  parts.  They  may  be  made  so,  artificially,  of  course,  for  any 
two  terms,  A  and  B,  distinct  from  one  another,  can  be  thrown  into 
the  contradiction-mold,  A  and  non-A.  But  this  process  generates 


ATTACK  AND  REPLY  229 

no  difficulties,  for  it  presupposes  the  very  absence  of  difficulties  in 
the  data  with  which  it  starts.  A  and  B  are  compatible,  though 
different,  and,  therefore,  so  are  A  and  non-A,  if  non-A  =  B.  Con- 
tradiction must  have  a  fulcrum  in  order  to  be  damaging,  it  must 
turn  on  some  eccentric. 

But,  although  not  contradictory  to  the  whole,  molecule,  atom, 
electron,  may  be  different  from  the  whole  of  which  they  are  parts. 
In  fact  there  is  evidence  that  they  are,  especially  in  some  cases. 
But  this  is  not  damaging  either.  It  shows  neither  that  the  analysis 
is  false,  nor  that  it  is  inadequate — although  it  may  be  incomplete, 
or  may  in  fact  be  in  error,  —  to  be  corrected  subsequently.  The 
latter  possibility  must,  of  course,  be  admitted  of  any  analysis. 
Consider  the  actual  state  of  affairs  which  is  revealed  by  this  modern 
physico-chemical-electrical  analysis.  There  are  the  wholes  to  be 
analyzed  —  pure  chemical  substances,  let  us  say.  And  there  are 
the  parts  revealed,  —  particles,  molecules,  atoms,  and  electrons. 
But  there  are  also  the  organizing  relations.  These  are  revealed 
by  the  analysis  just  as  much  as  are  the  terms.  These  relations 
may  at  the  present  time  offer  many  further  problems,  they  may 
be  of  many  different  kinds,  they  may  not  be  the  ultimate  relations 
involved,  but  at  the  present  stage  of  scientific  development  they 
are  the  relations  which  are  revealed,  whose  field  is  the  terms  dis- 
closed by  the  analysis,  and  which,  together  with  these  terms,  con- 
stitute the  whole.  The  terms  in  relation  may  not  constitute  the 
whole  in  an  additive  manner ;  few  wholes  are  so  constituted ;  few 
properties  so  result.  They  may  not  be  the  whole,  for  example, 
in  quite  the  same  way  that  points  related  asymmetrically  and 
transitively  are  a  line.  But  they  are  the  whole  in  some  of  its  dis- 
tinguishable aspects,  just  as  the  points  in  relation  are  the  line,  and 
they  are  not  the  whole  in  other  aspects.  The  whole  has  properties 
which  are  different  from  the  parts  and  the  relations.  Analysis, 
then,  by  subtraction  if  you  will,  reveals  these  properties.  The 
specific  properties  of  the  whole  plus  those  which  are  the  terms  in 
relation,  plus,  of  course,  the  relations,  exhaust  the  whole.  The 
analysis,  then,  is  adequate.  But  it  may  not  be  complete.  Pos- 


230  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

sibly  it  can  be  driven  further.  But,  on  the  basis  of  what  it  is  now, 
it  is  adequate,  and  certainly  presents  no  opening  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  claim  that  it  leads  to  contradictions  and  so  falsifies. 

At  the  present  stage,  then,  in  the  development  of  science,  those 
entities,  such  as  electrons,  atoms,  molecules,  etc.,  and  the  relations 
between  them,  which  together  exclusively  account  for  certain  ex- 
istential phenomena,  must  be  accepted  as  existing  in  quite  the 
same  sense  as  do  the  entities  which  they  explain. 

IV 

PERCEPTUAL  AND  CONCEPTUAL  ANALYSIS 

WE  now  come  to  the  third  kind  of  whole,  that  whole,  namely, 
which,  being  itself  a  class,  is  analyzed  into  subordinate  classes. 
Is  this  analysis  falsification  ? 

Let  us  take  an  example.  Fluorine,  chlorine,  bromine,  and 
iodine  are  grouped  together  as  the  halogen  elements.  They  are 
so  called,  of  course,  because  of  the  similarity  of  their  compounds 
with  those  of  chlorine,  such  as  NaCl,  common  salt.1  Halogen, 
is,  then,  the  class-concept.  The  actually  existing  things  are  spe- 
cific quantities  of  fluorine,  chlorine,  bromine,  and  iodine  —  actu- 
ally existing  in  some  specific  place  in  each  case.  The  class-con- 
cept, halogen,  is  none  of  these.  But  neither  are  fluorine  and 
chlorine,  as  class-concepts,  themselves  fluorine  and  chlorine. 

Let  us  consider  first  the  actually  existent  entities,  the  real 
fluorine,  chlorine,  etc.  Specific  quantities  of  chlorine  would,  as 
specific,  be  distinguished  from  one  another,  —  analyzed,  if  you 
will,  from  one  another,  and  yet  they  would  be  found  to  have  com- 
mon characteristics  by  virtue  of  which  they  are  all  chlorine,  and 
quite  similarly  with  specific  quantities  of  fluorine.  Yet  there 
is  another  distinction  which  the  actual  analysis  makes,  for  ex- 
ample, that  between  a  specific  quantity  of  chlorine  and  one  of 

1  Modern  chemical  investigation  shows  that  these  substances  have  further 
properties  by  virtue  of  which  they  belong  together  in  Group  VII  of  '  The  Periodic 
Law.'  Strictly  speaking,  they  are  sub-group  A  of  this  Group. 


PERCEPTION  AND  CONCEPTION  231 

fluorine.  Put  two  such  quantities  side  by  side  in  the  laboratory 
under  certain  conditions,  and  make  suitable  tests  and  observations. 
The  two  quantities  are  spatially  distinct.  But  they  are  also  found 
to  be  qualitatively  distinct  in  many  ways,  at  the  same  time  that 
they  are  similar.  Now  it  is  this  type  of  analysis  that  I  wish  to 
examine,  the  type  by  virtue  of  which  different  kinds  of  entities 
are  discovered.  It  is  this  analysis,  of  course,  by  virtue  of  which, 
in  both  common  sense  and  science,  the  great  manifold  of  kinds  of 
things,  events,  etc.,  are  classified  and  systematized.  Is  this  analy- 
sis attacked  ?  We  have  only  to  turn  to  M.  Bergson's  '  Creative 
Evolution '  to  find  an  affirmative  answer :  "  Our  perception,  whose 
role  is  to  hold  up  a  light  to  our  actions,  works  a  dividing  up  of 
matter  that  is  always  too  sharply  defined,  always  subordinated 
to  practical  needs,  consequently  always  requiring  revision.  Our 
science,  which  aspires  to  the  mathematical  form,  over-accentuates 
the  spatiality  of  matter."  1  "What  is  real  is  the  continual  change 
of  form :  form  is  only  a  snapshot  view  of  transition."  "Our  per- 
ception manages  to  solidify  into  discontinuous  images  the  fluid 
continuity  of  the  real."  2  Manifestly  this  attack  is  made  from 
the  standpoint  of  a  position  that  is  obtained  by  considering  the 
predominance  of  dynamic  concepts  in  modern  physical  science. 
Most  'things'  are  changing,  either  rapidly  or  slowly.  That  is  to 
be  admitted.  M.  Bergson  draws  his  evidence  from  many  such 
sources.  And  finally,  by  so  doing,  he  arrives  at  the  position  that 
everything  without  exception  is  change,  flux,  evolution,  with  such 
an  interpenetration  of  parts  (if  there  are  parts)  that  there  are  no 
lines  of  separation,  that  there  is  only  One  great  viscous  or  mobile 
fluid.3  With  this  the  case,  it  is  clear  that  his  attack  on  perceptual 
analysis  comes  under  the  usual  form.  The  whole  is  a  continuous, 
flowing,  trembling  jelly.  Perception  introduces  discontinuity,  rest. 
It  selects  this  object,  that  object,  this  quantity  and  that,  and 
makes  them  static.  Then  it  falsifies,  serve  though  it  may  the 
practical  purposes  of  our  action.  This  is  the  attack.  Can  it  be 
met? 

1  Ibid.,  206.  2  Ibid.,  302.  »  This  essay,  Section  I. 


232  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

I  think  that  it  can  be,  and,  indeed,  hi  two  ways.  First  the 
major  position  from  whose  standpoint  the  attack  is  made  is  con- 
structed by  applying  the  constitutive  theory  of  relations  to  any 
and  all  relations  between  any  and  all  things.1  If  there  is  a  uni- 
versal interpenetration  of  all  things  by  virtue  of  their  being  re- 
lated, then  there  are  no  things,  no  thing  is  any  one  thing,  nothing 
is  itself,  and  everything  is  something  else.  But  the  fallacies  and 
difficulties  of  this  view  we  have  previously  examined.  Change 
may  be  very  prevalent,  although  not  universal.  Or  it  might  even 
be  admitted  for  the  sake  of  the  argument  to  be  universal  for  exist- 
ing entities.  But  from  that  admission  it  does  not  follow  that 
there  is  only  One  Change  or  Evolution  with  no  place  at  all  for 
typical  and  individual  changes.  Conceivably  there  might  be  only 
One  Change,  qualitative  and  quantitative,  or  there  might  be  many 
changes,  qualitatively  and  quantitatively  distinct.  Then  analysis, 
discovering  which  is  the  case,  would  be  valid;  for  the  analysis 
which  I  am  discussing  here  is  not  limited  to  'getting  at'  the 
statical.  It  can  also  get  at  the  dynamical,  the  evolving,  the  chang- 
ing quite  as  well,  as  has  been  shown.  Bergson,  for  example,  him- 
self tacitly  admits  and  presupposes  this  in  distinguishing  three 
kinds  of  changes  which  we  perceive  and  for  which  we  have  con- 
cepts, namely,  qualitative,  evolutionary,  and  extensive.2  Every 
opponent  of  analysis  or  of  pluralism  admits  it  in  so  far  as  he  uses 
concepts  denoting  different  kinds  of  change. 

Accordingly  it  can  be  admitted  that  the  things,  the  qualities, 
etc.,  which  we  perceive  and  distinguish  in  concrete  cases  are  not 
genuinely  statical,  but  are  changing,  slow  though  this  process  be, 
and  yet  that  this  perceptual  analysis  is  quite  valid.  Different  con- 
crete entities,  whether  or  not  further  analysis  show  them  to  be 
processes  or  just  plain  '  things '  —  equilibriums  if  you  will  —  can  be 
perceived,  and  they  can  be  perceived  as  different,  whether  the  dif- 
ference be  only  a  spatial  and  temporal  one,  or  also  a  qualitative 
one.  In  the  former  case  the  two  or  more  entities  are  perceived 
as  instances  of  the  same  qualitative  complex,  and  the  possible 

1  Se«  Section  I.  *  Op.  rit.,  303. 


CONCEPTS  233 

existence  of  still  other  cases  is  implied.  In  the  second  case  it  is 
implied  that  other  instances,  similar  respectively  to  each  of  the 
two  or  more  qualitatively  different  complexes,  may  be  found. 
Then  there  are  two  sets  of  cases,  each  case  individual,  but  each 
set  also  differing  as  a  set  from  the  other  set.  The  individuals  of 
each  set  are  simply  different  spatially  and  temporally,  one  or  both, 
but  they  are  individuals  or  instances  of  a  certain  complex  of  quali- 
ties, other  instances  of  which  can  be  conceived.  But  in  any  case, 
whether  found  to  exist  or  only  conceived,  they  differ  qualitatively 
from  the  individuals  of  another  set. 

All  this  is  trite.  It  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that  among 
certain  individuals  which  are  numerically  distinct,  qualities  or 
groups  of  qualities  are  found  which  are  numerically  the  same,  and 
of  which  other  instances  can  be  conceived.  There  are  qualita- 
tively different  '  states  of  affairs '  of  different  groups  of  individuals, 
the  individuals  of  each  group  forming  that  group  by  virtue  of 
being  instances  of  the  same  state  of  affairs.  Then  there  are  states 
of  affairs  which  differ  qualitatively  and  are  themselves  numeri- 
cally distinct.  Briefly,  there  are  different  concepts  revealed  by 
analysis.  What,  now,  is  the  character  of  these  states  of  affairs  ? 
Briefly,  it  may  be  said  (1)  that  the  state  of  affairs,  the  concept,  is 
not  the  printed  or  spoken  sign,  the  word.  It  would  subsist,  did 
the  signs  not  exist.  (2)  It  is  not  the  knowledge  or  idea  of  the 
state  of  affairs,  for  again  there  would  be  a  real  state  of  affairs  even 
if  it  were  not  known.  (3)  It  is  not  identical  with  the  individual 
cases,  whatever  these  be.  Number  is  not  any  one  number,  man 
is  not  a  man,  etc.  (4)  It  is  not  necessarily  even  physical  or  mental, 
even  when  the  individual  cases  are  physical  or  mental  existents. 
Thus  the  state  of  affairs,  indivisibility,  is  not  itself  an  indivisible, 
nor  is  mentality  itself  mental.  Further,  there  are  states  of  affairs 
of  entities  which  are  neither  physical  nor  mental,  that  is,  which  do 
not  exist;  for  example,  arithmetical  continuity. 

Analysis,  so-called  conceptual  analysis,  reveals,  therefore,  quali- 
tatively different  and  numerically  distinct  states  of  affairs  or  con- 
cepts. They  may  be  the  states  of  affairs  regarding  change,  for  ex- 


234  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

ample,  the  laws  of  change,  as  well  as  regarding  entities  which,  like 
points,  do  not  change.  Is,  now,  the  analysis  which  gives  or  is  iden- 
tical with  these  concepts  open  to  attack  ?  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it 
is  attacked.  Says  M.  Bergson,  "Concepts  are  outside  each  other, 
like  objects  in  space;  and  they  have  the  same  stability  as  such 
objects,  on  which  they  have  been  modeled."  "They  are  not  the 
perception  of  things,  but  the  representation  of  the  act  by  which 
the  intellect  is  fixed  on  them."  "They  are,  therefore,  symbols."  l 
"The  intellect  is  not  made  to  think  evolution,  in  the  proper  sense 
of  the  word  —  that  is  to  say,  the  continuity  of  a  change  that  is 
pure  mobility."  2 

The  attack  here  is  in  part  at  least  a  variation  of  the  typical  at- 
tack which  we  have  found  to  be  made  in  every  case  so  far  consid- 
ered. Concepts  are  characterized  as  statical  entities,  solid-like 
'things,'  external  to  one  another,  etc.  How,  then,  can  they 
relate  or  refer  to  that  which  is  not  statical,  but  is  concrete,  actual 
process,  change,  evolution?  This  is  the  variation  of  the  typical 
attack.  What  is  its  central  principle?  Briefly,  it  is  this,  That 
only  like  entities  can  be  related.  Therefore  the  concept,  which 
is  static,  cannot  be  related  to  or  refer  to  that  which  is  not  static, 
but  is  process,  change,  etc.  The  concept  by  its  very  nature  is 
inadequate  to  draw  out  or  present  the  character  of  that  which 
is  its  contradictory  in  nature.  Or,  if  the  concept  be  admitted  to 
be  the  state  of  affairs,  the  law,  or  what-not,  of  a  process,  then  it 
falsifies ;  it  in  some  sense  makes  static  that  which  is  not. 

This,  then,  is  the  attack.  Can  it  be  met  ?  It  undoubtedly  can 
be,  and  first  by  an  argument  both  reductio  ad  absurdum  and  ad 
hominem.  Any  party  making  this  specific  attack  invalidates  his 
own  attack  and  tacitly  accepts  the  validity  of  conceptual  analysis 
in  talking  about  evolution,  process,  and  change.  These  are  con- 
cepts, and  whether  they  are  statical  or  dynamical,  they  are  cap- 
able of  meaning  and  of  referring  to  that  which  is  —  well,  just 
what  they  designate,  namely,  change,  evolution,  etc.  If  the  con- 
cept be  dynamical,  then  we  have  like  entities  related ;  if  it  be  static, 

I0p.  tit.,  160-161.  *  Ibid.,  163. 


ATTACK  AND   REPLY  235 

then  unlike  things.  But  in  either  case  it  is  related  to  that  of  which 
it  is  the  concept.  The  attacking  party  tacitly  grants,  then,  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  concept  which  prevents  it  from 
being  a  concept  or  state  of  affairs  of  other  entities,  whether  these 
be  like  the  concept  or  not. 

With  this  point  cleared,  it  can  also  be  readily  seen  that  on  the 
basis  of  a  similar  argument  the  attacking  party  can  be  forced  to 
grant  the  validity  of  that  further  conceptual  analysis  which  is 
identical  with  distinguishing  different  states  of  affairs.  He  him- 
self distinguishes  different  kinds  of  change.  Then  he  admits  that 
the  general  principle  of  having  kinds  is  valid.  The  further  analy- 
sis of  some  of  these  kinds  may  be  difficult.  But  the  analysis  of 
the  larger  whole  into  these  types  is  quite  valid.  In  fact,  it  is 
presupposed  by  the  attacking  party  to  be.  Then  further  similar 
analysis  may  also  be.  I  conclude,  then,  that  this  specific  attack 
is  not  to  be  taken  seriously,  but  that  it  is  made  under  the  influence 
of  analogy  and  of  misleading  figures  of  speech. 

The  other  aspect  of  the  attack  on  conceptual  analysis  is  not  a 
variation  from  the  type.  It  is  practically  the  same  as  the  attack 
on  perception.  Perception,  so  it  is  held,  falsifies  by  breaking  up 
into  statical  and  sharply  separated  parts  that  which  is  really  one 
concrete  universal  change.  Conception,  it  is  also  held,  falsifies 
by  making  statical  that  which  is  not.  Here  the  defense,  then, 
is  the  same  as  against  the  attack  on  perception.  The  validity  of 
conceptual  reference  and  analysis  is  presupposed  by  the  attacking 
party  himself  in  his  distinction  of  different  kinds  of  evolution  and 
change.  Each  of  these  kinds  has  many  instances.  Each  would 
be  a  genuine  state  of  affairs,  which,  though  related  to  other  kinds, 
would  be  just  that  kind.  Then  he  has  accepted  the  principle  that 
valid  conceptual  distinctions  or  analyses  can  be  made.  That  is 
all  that  is  necessary  to  refute  his  attack,  for  his  attack  is  on  the 
principle,  and  not  on  the  details  of  any  specific  conceptual  analysis. 

I  conclude,  therefore,  that  conceptual  analysis  qua  concep- 
tual is  quite  valid.  Just  as  there  are  individuals,  whether  these 
be  things  or  processes,  which  can  be  validly  distinguished  in  per- 


236  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

ception,  so  there  are  types  of  individuals,  which  types,  although 
they  are  similar  to  one  another  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  are  also 
different  and  distinct.  The  individuals  may  be  of  the  most  vari- 
ous kinds ;  they  may  be  physical  or  mental  existents,  complexes  or 
simples,  relations  or  terms,  motions,  or  rests,  or  qualities,  or  things; 
they  may  be  entities  which,  like  the  numbers,  are  neither  physical 
nor  mental,  but  are  subsistents.  Thus  we  are  already  distinguish- 
ing types.  But,  whatever  be  the  concrete  individuals,  the  state  of 
affairs,  the  type,  is,  as  a  state  of  affairs,  only  subsistent,  and  is  iden- 
tical with  itself.  It  is  just  that  state  of  affairs,  whether  individ- 
uals corresponding  \o  it  exist  now  or  not;  it  retains  its  meaning  as 
these  individuals  may  come  and  go.  Further,  as  a  specific  state  of 
affairs,  it  may  differ  from  other  states  of  affairs ;  in  fact,  although 
related  to  them,  it  may  be  quite  independent  of  them.  What  the 
relation  of  different  states  of  affairs  is,  is  for  analysis  to  determine. 
That  is  the  problem  which  the  attacking  party  always  admits  to  be 
solvable,  although  his  solution  is  different  from  that  of  the  defend- 
ing party.  For  the  latter,  analysis  solves  this  problem,  with  the 
outcome  that  certain  types  are  quite  independent  of  others.  Thus, 
numbers  as  a  type  are  independent  of  instants,  of  points,  of  material 
particles,  of  acts  of  counting,  in  the  sense  that  all  these  imply  the 
numbers,  but  not  conversely.  There  is  a  certain  hierarchy  of  types. 
Certain  types  could  subsist,  or  exist,  without  others,  though  not 
conversely. 

In  summary,  then,  I  conclude  that  that  kind  of  analysis  in 
which  the  whole  analyzed  is  a  type  or  class  with  subordinate 
classes,  or  finally  a  class  with  individuals  as  terms,  is  not  invali- 
dated by  the  attack,  but  remains  a  method  whereby  entities  are 
discovered  which  are  as  real,  and  real  hi  the  same  sense,  as  are  those 
wholes  to  which  the  attacking  party  alone  attributes  reality. " 


237 
V 

THE  ANALYSIS  OF  ORGANIC  WHOLES1 

I  NOW  come  to  the  examination  of  the  analysis  of  the  fourth 
kind  of  whole,  illustrated  by  any  specific  finite  quantity  of  any 
specific  chemical  compound  and  by  an  organism.  The  character 
of  the  analysis  which  I  wish  to  defend,  as  well  as  the  character 
of  the  wholes  analyzed,  will  be  made  clear  by  a  definite  example, 
that  of  the  analysis  of  water.  Water  is  shown  by  analysis  to  be 
a  compound.  As  water,  it  has  certain  properties,  some  of  which 
are  found  in  other  compounds,  others  not ;  in  the  latter  case  the 
properties  are  specific.  All  the  properties  are  classified  as  either 
chemical  or  physical.  The  chemical  properties  are  those  which 
are  involved  in  the  fact  that  water  reacts  or  combines  with  certain 
other  compounds  and  with  certain  elements.  Among  the  im- 
portant physical  properties  are  specific  gravity,  refractive  power, 
boiling  point,  electrical  conductivity,  absorptive  power,  and 
elasticity.  Water  as  a  whole  has  these  two  types  of  properties. 

By  electrolysis,  however,  and  by  some  other  supplementary 
modes  of  experimentation,  water  is  actually  split  up  or  analyzed  into 
two  substances,  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  which  are  gases  under  normal 
conditions.  Investigation  of  these  shows  that  each  has  many  of 
the  same  kind  of  properties  as  has  water,  although  with  numerical 
values  different  from  the  values  in  the  case  of  water.  Properties 
common  to  hydrogen,  oxygen,  and  water  are  all  the  above  enu- 
merated physical  properties.  But  the  chemical  properties  of  the 
three  substances  are  different.  However,  in  the  case  also  of  the 
physical  properties,  the  numerical  value  of  certain  properties  of 
the  whole,  water,  namely,  the  last  four,  is  not  simply  the  additive 
result  of  the  values  of  these  same  properties  in  the  parts.  In  the 
case,  then,  of  both  kinds  of  properties,  chemical  and  physical,  there 
would  seem  to  be  something  in  the  whole  which  is  not  in  the  parts, 
and  conversely.  If  the  whole  be  experimentally  synthesized  out 
of  the  parts,  then  something  new  appears  as  properties  of  the 

^  Cf.  Pitkin,  this  volume. 


238  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

whole,  something  which  is  new  qualitatively  as  well  as  quanti- 
tatively. On  the  other  hand,  if  an  experimental  analysis  be  made  of 
the  whole,  then  the  whole  is  also  found  to  have  properties  which 
the  parts  do  not  have.  These  properties  are  put  '  in  relief '  by  the 
analysis;  they  are  a  residuum,  characteristic  of  the  whole  as  a 
whole,  and  revealed  by  an  analysis  which  at  the  same  tune  reveals 
the  parts  or  elements,  and,  through  its  ramifications,  the  organiz- 
ing relations. 

This  fact,  that  hi  the  actual  synthesis,  artificial,  or  natural 
and  developmental,  of  existential  wholes  out  of  parts,  new  prop- 
erties or  new  values  appear,  is  a  matter  of  great  importance.  It 
is  a  fact,  too,  which  is  accepted  by  authoritative  investigators. 
Says  Professor  Nernst,1  "A  large  number  of  physical  properties 
have  been  shown  to  be  clearly  additive;  that  is,  the  value  of  the 
property  in  question  can  be  calculated  as  though  the  compound  were 
such  a  mixture  of  its  elements  that  they  experience  no  change  in 
their  properties."  Examples  are  the  volume,  refraction,  magnetism, 
and  heat  of  combustion  of  organic  compounds.  But  other  prop- 
erties are  not  additive.  "The  kind  of  influence  of  the  atom  in  a 
compound  is  primarily  dependent  upon  the  mode  of  its  union,  that 
is,  upon  the  constitution  and  configuration  of  the  compound.  Such 
non-additive  properties  are  called  constitutive."  Examples  are 
the  absorption  of  light,  the  rotatory  power,  the  melting  point. 

Now  modern  physics  and  chemistry,  physics  chiefly,  carries 
this  typical  analysis  of  water  further;  it  analyzes  the  two  con- 
stituents of  water,  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  to  discover  that  these 
in  turn  consist  of  parts  related  in  certain  specific  ways.  In  fact, 
at  no  stage  of  this  physico-chemical  analysis  are  the  organizing 
relations  unrevealed.  Hydrogen  and  oxygen,  and  presumably 
all  the  elements,  are  shown  to  be  composed  of  electrons,  that  is, 
of  negative  electrical  charges  hi  a  positive  electrical  field.  Further 
analysis  shows  that  these  electrons  are  in  very  rapid  orbital  mo- 
tion, and  that  their  mass  is  a  function  of  their  velocity.  The 
atom  turns  out,  then,  to  be  a  mechanism,  —  an  electro-mechanism, 

i  Nernat,  W.  (Lehfeldt,  R.  A.,  trans.),  Theoretical  Chemistry,  365. 


NEW  PROPERTIES  239 

however,  just  as  the  molecule  is  a  mechanism  whose  parts  are 
atoms,  and  the  particle  a  mechanism  whose  parts  are  molecules. 
But  with  the  atom  an  electro-mechanism,  the  analysis  can  be 
pushed  further.  The  electron  is  itself  an  electrical  field  of  force. 
It  is,  then,  a  three-dimensional  manifold  of  elements  which  are 
intensity-points  forming  an  ordered  series.  But  the  electrons 
are  in  motion.  Then  their  motion  can  be  analyzed  after  the 
manner  previously  presented.1  Clearly,  various  laws,  arithmetical, 
dynamical,  mechanical,  as  they  have  previously  been  presented, 
have  an  application  to  the  entities  within  the  molecule.  From 
these  laws,  however,  no  specific  molecule  with  its  specific  char- 
acteristics can  be  deduced,  yet,  conversely,  any  specific  molecule 
is  found  to  imply  these  laws. 

However,  we  do  not  need  to  go  so  far  as  to  take  into  considera- 
tion the  analysis  involved  in  these  laws  in  order  to  establish  an 
important  point.  Let  us  stop  with  the  analysis  of  the  atom  into 
electrons,  and  compare  the  properties  of  the  latter  with  those 
of  the  former.  Electrons  as  individuals  have  certain  properties 
which  atoms  have,  namely,  a  volume,  a  specific  gravity,  a  mass, 
an  attractive  power  (whatever  this  may  be),  but  they  lack  refrac- 
tive power,  rotatory  power,  electrical  conductivity,  absorptive 
power,  which  properties  the  atom  has.  Similarly,  any  finite  quantity 
of  atoms,  as  atoms  and  not  as  molecules,  for  example,  vaporized  mer- 
cury, has,  as  a  whole,  properties  which  the  individual  atoms  do  not 
have,  and  likewise  with  the  molecule.  At  each  stage  in  the  syn- 
thesis of  wholes  out  of  parts  which  are  in  turn  wholes  until  we  get 
to  the  intensity-points  of  that  field  of  force  which  is  the  electron, 
there  are  properties  of  the  whole  which  are  not  found  among  the 
properties  of  the  parts.  But  analysis  reveals  what  these  wholes 
are,  what  their  parts  are,  what  the  properties  of  each  are,  and 
what  the  organizing  relations  at  each  level  are.  It  allows  for  a 
whole  which  is  not  merely  the  sum  of  its  parts,  and  which,  with  its 
properties,  cannot  at  the  present  stage  of  science  be  deduced  from 
those  parts.  Yet  it  also  allows  for  the  empirical  ascertainment  in 

1  This  easay,  Section  III. 


240  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

many  cases  of  the  functional  relation  between  the  properties  of 
the  whole  and  those  of  the  parts. 

Can  this  analysis  be  successfully  attacked?  The  question 
is  most  important,  for  it  is  just  this  kind  of  analysis  that  is 
identical  with  the  experimental  procedure  of  many  sciences.  Thus 
would  physiological  chemistry  analyze  organisms  and  their  parts ; 
thus  do  chemistry  and  physics  proceed. 

The  attack  is  undoubtedly  made.  However,  there  is  no  oppor- 
tunity for  introducing  that  typical  attack  which  we  have  consid- 
ered elsewhere.  Here,  part  and  whole  do  not  seem  to  be  contra- 
dictories. The  only  opportunity  for  attack,  then,  consists  in  the 
claim  that,  in  a  whole  which  is  constituted  by  interpenetrating  and 
causally  interacting  parts,  no  part  can  be  experimentally  re- 
moved without  altering  it.1 

The  reply  is  that  perhaps  it  cannot  be  —  in  the  instance  of  the 
kind  of  whole  we  are  now  considering.  There  do  seem  to  be  wholes 
which  consist  of  parts,  which,  related,  do  modify  or  influence  one 
another,  or  which,  perhaps,  are  constituted  by  virtue  of  their 
relation  to  one  another.  At  least,  this  is  one  hypothesis.  Such 
wholes  are  well  illustrated  by  an  organism,  and  for  this  reason  are 
called  organic.  As  wholes,  they  do  seem  to  have  properties  which 
the  parts  have  not,  properties  which  are  not  derived  additively 
from  those  of  the  parts.  Let  the  parts  be  brought  together  in  a 
natural  process,  and  we  have  both  creation  and  evolution.  Let 
them  be  brought  together  in  the  laboratory,  and  we  have  creation 
accompanying  synthesis.  In  either  case  there  is  a  creative  synthe- 
sis, natural  or  artificial.  But  organisms  are  not  the  only  kind  of 
whole  which  presents  this  synthesis.  Non-living  things  do  also, 
quite  as  well.  Chemical  compounds  do,  atoms  do,  every  physical 
complex  does.  Both  part  and  whole  in  every  case  may  be  arithmet- 
ical, dynamical,  mechanical,  etc.,  but  in  each  case  also  they  are 
more  than  this  in  that,  for  example,  the  mechanical  laws  which 
apply  are  limited  by  the  peculiar  qualitative  constants  which 
render  each  whole  and  part  specific. 

1  This  essay,  Section  I. 


TWO  HYPOTHESES  241 

With  reference,  now,  to  the  actual  experimental  analysis  of 
these  organic  wholes  there  are  two  hypotheses,  each  of  which  is 
compatible  with  the  realistic  interpretation  of  analysis.  The  one 
hypothesis  is,  that  when  the  parts  are  analyzed  out  they  are  changed 
in  certain  respects.  This  would  not  necessarily  be  the  case  with 
all  the  properties  of  the  parts.  For  example,  in  the  case  of  water, 
certain  properties,  such  as  the  specific  gravity  and  refractive  power 
of  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  would  seem  to  be  the  same,  both  when 
these  substances  are  in  and  out  of  combination.  But  with  other 
properties,  especially  the  chemical,  the  case  is  different.  Some  of 
these  seem  to  be  gained  by  the  parts  when  analyzed  out,  and  to  be 
lost  when  the  substances  are  combined,  with  the  supplementary 
gain  by  the  whole.  Analysis  and  synthesis  are,  then,  comple- 
mentary processes.  Each  also  is  a  natural  process.  Both  create. 
In  each,  relative  to  the  other,  new  properties  appear,  and  there  is 
a  genuine  creation  which  is  not  explained  away  by  saying  that 
that  which  appears  as  new  has  been  potential  all  the  time.  By 
this  first  hypothesis,  then,  the  parts  when  in  situ  in  the  whole  will 
be  actually  constituted  by  virtue  of  their  relation  to  other  parts. 

By  the  other  hypothesis,  the  parts,  whatever  these  may  be, 
electrons,  atoms,  molecules,  particles,  remain  quite  the  same, 
quite  unmodified  whether  they  are  in  or  out  of  the  whole.  But 
then,  to  accord  with  fact,  it  must  be  granted  that  new  properties 
arise  for  each  successive  whole.  By  this  hypothesis,  with  elec- 
trons combined  to  form  an  atom,  the  electrons  remain  just  what 
they  were  before  they  were  combined,  yet  the  combination  as 
a  whole  has  properties  which  the  electrons  lack,  and  similarly 
with  the  combination  of  atoms  into  molecules,  molecules  into 
particles,  and  so  on  upward,  as  it  were.  Both  hypotheses,  however, 
recognize  a  non-rational  element  in  nature,  —  at  least  so  far  as  our 
present  knowledge  goes.  The  time  may  come  when  the  new 
properties  of  the  whole  can  be  deduced  from  those  of  the  parts, 
but  at  the  present  time  this  deduction  is  impossible,  and  it  is  an 
open  question  as  to  whether  this  impossibility  is  due  to  the  struc- 
ture of  existence,  or  to  our  ignorance, 
a 


242  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

Both  hypotheses  are,  however,  perfectly  consistent  with  the 
realistic  interpretation  of  analysis.  In  neither  case  does  analysis 
lead  to  parts  which  are  the  contradictory  of  the  whole.  The  analy- 
sis is  itself  a  process,  an  event.  By  the  first  hypothesis,  that  which 
is  taken  out,  or  put  in,  is  altered.  But  in  each  case  analysis  reveals 
what  the  alteration  is,  and  in  each  case  the  resulting  properties 
are  real.  Analysis  is  itself  simply  a  process  from  which  real  prop- 
erties result,  by  which  real  properties  are  changed.1  By  the  second 
hypothesis,  that  which  is  taken  out  and  put  in  is  not  altered,  but 
remains  the  same  entity.  Yet  when  this  synthesis  takes  place, 
the  parts  become  related  as  they  were  not  before,  new  organizing 
relations  are  instituted,  and  a  whole  with  new  properties  is  formed. 
But  here  also  analysis  reveals  these  properties,  the  organizing  re- 
lations of  the  parts,  and  the  parts  with  their  properties.  Both 
analysis  and  its  complement,  synthesis,  are  processes,  the  former 
revealing  parts  which  remain  what  they  are  even  when  their  re- 
lations change,  the  latter  instrumental  in  causing  new  properties 
to  arise.  Neither,  however,  furnishes  any  opportunity  for  the 
claim  that  either  the  parts  revealed,  or  the  properties  and  whole 
produced,  are  not  to  be  interpreted  quite  realistically,  or  as  in  any 
sense  contradictory  and  so  falsifying.  Change  is  a  fact.  That 
it  is,  is  one  of  the  attacking  party's  chief  arguments  against  analy- 
sis. Then  most  assuredly  that  party  cannot  consistently  attack 
experimental  analysis  on  the  ground  that  it  itself  is  a  process  and 
brings  about  changes.  The  attack  could  be  made  only  as  regards 
the  character  of  the  changes  instituted,  and  this  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  principle  of  the  typical  attack  on  analysis  —  that  it  changes 
the  whole  to  parts  which  are  the  whole's  contradictories.  But 
here  there  is  no  opportunity  for  this  claim.  Molecules  are  not 
the  contradictory  of  particles,  nor  are  atoms  of  molecules,  nor 
electrons  of  atoms. 

I  conclude,  then,  that,  like  the  other  analyses  examined,  the  an- 
alysis of  organic  wholes  stands  unimpeached  by  any  attack  which 

1  It  has  been  previously  shown,  of  course,  that  change  presents  no  insuperable 
difficulties  to  analysis.  Section  III. 


ANALYSIS  OF  ORGANISMS  243 

has  as  yet  been  made  upon  it.  These  wholes  are,  more  clearly 
than  any  others  which  we  have  considered,  not  simply  the  addi- 
tive result  of  their  parts.  They  have  new  properties,  properties 
which  the  parts  lack.  All  physical  and  chemical  wholes,  both 
living  and  non-living,  are  of  this  sort  —  excepting,  of  course,  the 
ultimate  simple.  The  analysis  is  adequate.  It  reveals  the  parts, 
the  organizing  relations,  and  the  properties  of  the  wholes  them- 
selves. Valid  also  is  this  analysis.  It  may  change  that  which  is 
analyzed  out,  as  by  the  first  hypothesis,  or  it  may  not,  as  by  the 
second.  But  in  either  case  the  part  is  to  be  accepted  at  its  face 
value  in  accordance  with  the  fundamental  realistic  postulate. 
For  there  is  nothing  in  change  qua  change  which  runs  counter  to 
this  postulate.1  Change  qua  change  does  not  prejudice  the  real- 
ity of  either  the  terminus  a  quo  or  the  terminus  ad  quern.  That  is 
admitted  both  tacitly  and  explicitly  by  the  opponents  of  analysis. 
Then  they  cannot  hold  a  brief  against  analysis  on  the  ground 
alone  that  it  involves  change  —  as  this  specific  kind  of  analysis 
does  in  distinction  from  analysis  in  situ. 

ORGANISMS  AND   THEIR  ANALYSIS 

Organisms  are  the  kind  of  whole,  and  their  analysis  is  of  the 
type  just  presented.  The  recognition  of  this  throws  much  light 
on  the  question  as  to  what  the  nature  of  the  organism  is,  what  the 
nature  of  life  is.  It  clarifies  the  issue  between  the  so-called  vitalist 
and  mechanist  in  biology.  All  the  evidence,  now,  shows  that  the 
organism  consists  of  cells,  of  colloidal  particles  in  solution,  of 
molecules,  of  atoms,  and  of  electrons.  At  each  level,  as  we  go 
upward  synthetically,  new  properties  appear.  Going  downward, 
analytically,  there  is  on  the  whole  a  loss  of  properties.  There  is  a 
tendency  toward  simplification.  In  general  all  this  is  admitted 
by  all  parties.  By  all,  the  organism  is  conceded  to  be  this  kind  of 
whole.  The  question  at  issue,  however,  is,  is  it  more  ?  Now  a 
physico-chemical  complex  is  a  whole  in  which  there  are  parts, 

1  Cf.,  e.g.,  Bergson,  Creative  Evolution,  and  Time  and  Free  Will. 


244  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

molecules,  atoms,  etc.,  each  one  of  which  is  in  turn  a  whole.  Well- 
known  laws  apply  to  these  various  wholes  and  parts,  but  only  as 
qualified  or  limited  by  certain  '  constants '  expressing  the  numerical 
value  of  the  properties  at  each  level.  Thus,  for  example,  the 
principle  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy,  the  principle  of  D'Alem- 
bert,  the  Second  Law  of  Thermodynamics,  the  Laws  of  Motion, 
etc.,  apply  to  the  physico-chemical  complex,  but  only  under  con- 
ditions which  are  expressed  in  the  formulae  in  such  a  way  as  to 
give,  by  integration,  values  which  are  confirmed  experimentally. 
In  this  sense,  then,  the  complex  is  a  mechanism.  But  it  is  not  a 
pure  mechanism,  that  is,  its  laws  are  not  those  purely  mechan- 
ical laws  which  are  obtained  by  eliminating  all  constants  by 
successive  differentiation.  But  it  is  mechanical  in  the  sense 
that  the  electrical  current  is  mechanical,  namely,  with  purely 
mechanical  laws  qualified  by  limitations  obtained  by  measuring 
electrical  phenomena.  All  this  can  be  granted,  and  the  ad- 
mission still  be  made,  that  every  chemical  compound  is  peculiar 
and  specific,  different  in  some  respects  from  every  other  compound, 
and  with  properties,  as  a  whole,  which  do  not  characterize  its 
parts. 

Is  the  organism,  the  individual  organism  of  any  species  or  vari- 
ety, plant  or  animal,  anything  more  than  just  such  a  specific 
physico-chemical  complex,  specifically  different,  of  course,  from 
other  physico-chemical  complexes  which  are  organisms? 

Vitalistic  theories  are  not  many.  One  traditional  vague  theory, 
that  of  the  older  vitalists,  holds  to  the  existence  in  an  organism  of 
a  vital  force  or  energy,  but  this  entity  has  never  been  discovered 
experimentally.  However,  quite  evidently,  did  it  exist,  it  would 
not  make  the  organism  non-mechanistic.  For  energy  is  subject  to 
mechanical  principles.  A  vital  energy  would  at  best  add  only  one 
more  mechanistic  element  to  that  complex  which  is  the  organism. 
Another  theory  makes  a  mental  factor  universally  parallel  with 
the  physiological  factors.  Then,  if  the  latter  be  mechanistic 
(which  is  the  question  at  issue),  the  former,  as  parallel,  is  also.  A 
third  theory,  distinctively  non-parallelistic,  places  a  psychical 


VITALISTIC  THEORIES  245 

entity  'in  control/  as  it  were,  of  the  discharge  of  that  potential 
energy  which,  according  to  the  theory,  it  is  one  of  the  distinctive 
features  of  the  organism  to  store  up  in  greater  amounts,  perhaps, 
than  do  inorganic  complexes.  Thus  various  ends  or  purposes, 
'entertained'  by  this  entity,  could  be  accomplished  by  vaiying 
the  direction  of  the  release  of  the  potential  energy.  Once  released, 
however,  the  specific  energy  discharged  would  take  place  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  usual  principles  of  inorganic  events.  Now  this 
is  a  theory  which,  if  it  be  true,  does  mean  a  real  difference  between 
the  organic  and  the  inorganic,  for  by  it  the  organism  as  a  whole 
would  present  in  its  behavior  a  range  of  variations  under  the  same 
conditions  which  it  would  not  do  if  it  were  simply  and  only  a 
physico-chemical  complex.  Under  the  same  conditions  the  or- 
ganism would  now  do  one  thing,  now  another.  The  holding  of 
this  theory  to  be  true  would  have  an  important  influence  on  the 
biologist's  attitude.  It  is,  in  fact,  nugatory  of  scientific  biology, 
and  if  the  theory  were  true,  vitalism  would  have  a  distinctive 
'meaning,  differentiating  it  from  mechanism.  However,  the 
theory  is  not  supported  by  facts.  The  organism,  even  in  the 
case  of  those  phenomena  which,  like  regenerations,  restitutions, 
variable  morphogenesis,  etc.,  are  held  by  some  to  support  a 
vitalistic  theory,  is  found  to  do  the  same  thing  under  the 
same  circumstances.  That,  however,  which  these  phenomena  are 
held  by  others  to  show  is,  that  under  different  circumstances  the 
same  end  or  outcome  is  accomplished  or  gained.  This  gives  a 
fourth  theory,  according  to  which  there  is  hi  every  organism  a 
psychical  entity  which,  in  the  midst  of  varying  circumstances,  suc- 
ceeds in  bringing  about  a  definite  end.1  This  is  the  hypothesis. 
However,  the  physically  observable  fact  is,  that  that  which  by 
the  hypothesis  is  an  end  is  prima  facie  a  later  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment or  behavior  of  the  organism.  It  may  also  be  more  than  this, 
that  is,  even  as  it  would  be  interpreted  by  the  hypothesis  under 

1  This  is  Driesch's  Neo-vitalism  and  doctrine  of  the  Entelechy.  Driesch,  Hans, 
The  Science  and  Philosophy  of  the  Organism,  Gifford  Lectures,  1907,  1908,  and 
other  works. 


246  DEFENSE  OF  ANALYSIS 

consideration,  it  may  be  a  consciously  held  and  purposed  end, 
aimed  at  now,  and  accomplished  in  the  future.  But  even  if  this 
were  the  case,  its  primary  status  as  '  later  stage '  would  not  be 
altered  thereby.  In  fact,  to  be  a  '  held '  end  that  is  accomplished, 
it  must  also  be  at  least  an  end  in  this  sense,  namely,  a  'later 
stage ' ;  it  could  be  the  latter  without  being  the  former,  but  not 
conversely.  But  if  the  end  be  an  end  in  this  sense  of  '  later  stage/ 
then,  whatever  else  it  may  also  be  in  certain  cases,  it  is  the  kind 
of  end  that  inorganic  physico-chemical  complexes  also  present. 
In  general,  among  these  complexes,  the  same  effect,  or  what 
within  certain  limits  is  the  same  effect,  can  be  produced  by  many 
causes.  Thus  a  specific  chemical  compound  can  be  synthesized  in 
many  ways.  Further,  as  wholes,  these  inorganic  complexes  present 
properties  which  the  parts  do  not  have;  they  are  mechanisms, 
though  not  machines.  These  two  features  are,  now,  so  far  as  the 
ascertainable  physical  facts  are  concerned,  all  that  the  organism  is. 
If,  however,  a  special  entity,  like  Driesch's  Entelechy,  were  brought 
in  to  explain  these  facts  in  the  case  of  inorganic  complexes,  not 
only  would  it  be  superfluous  and  not  explain,  but  the  facts  them- 
selves would  not  be  altered  thereby.  The  complex  would  be  quite 
as  mechanistic  with  the  entity  as  without  it.  But  for  these  com- 
plexes there  is  no  necessity  for  bringing  in  such  a  special  entity. 
The  only  difference  which  its  presence  would  make  would  be  the 
difference  between  presence  and  absence. 

If,  then,  vitalism  is  defined  in  accordance  with  the  fourth  hy- 
pothesis, it  is  a  position  which  is  meaningless  in  the  sense  that  it 
does  not  succeed  in  making  that  distinction  between  the  organic 
and  the  inorganic  which  it  aims  to.  For  if  such  a  special  entity  be 
put  into  living  things,  there  are  the  same  reasons  for  putting  it  into 
non-living.  But  with  either  its  presence  or  its  absence  common  to 
both  realms,  no  distinction  between  these  can  be  drawn  or  found 
on  its  basis.  But  this  is  not  to  say  that  a  consciousness  or  aware- 
ness of  some  specific  character  may  not  be  admitted  to  arise  in 
certain  organisms  under  definite  conditions.  It  may.  But  such 
an  awareness  does  not  demand  a  vitalistic  interpretation  of  the 


VITALISTIC  THEORIES  247 

organism.  It  does  not  explain  the  end  in  the  sense  of  '  later  stage,' 
but  only  makes  of  this  a  '  held '  or  '  purposed '  end,  to  be  accom- 
plished in  the  future.  The  '  later  stage,'  as  well  as  the  '  creative 
synthesis,'  as  actually  occurring  and  so  observable,  is  explained 
and  accounted  for  sufficiently  in  connection  with  and  in  relation 
to  earlier  stages.  The  hypothesis  of  a  supervening  awareness  adds 
no  explanatory  element  to  this  account.  This  awareness  may 
occur,  and  it  is  good  realism  to  admit  that  it  may,  but,  if  it  does, 
it  is  to  be  distinguished  from  a  special  entity  like  an  '  entelechy,' 
which  is  held  to  persist  and  control  and  direct,  and  to  explain 
both  accomplished  end  and  'creative  synthesis.' 

A  difference  in  specificity  is,  then,  the  only  difference  between 
the  living  and  the  non-living,  but  this  difference  furnishes  no  ground 
for  holding  a  vitalistic  as  opposed  to  a  mechanistic  theory.1  Those 
vitalistic  theories  which  by  definition  do  mean  something  different 
from  mechanism  are  not  confirmed.  Others  only  add  an  hypo- 
thetical entity  which  makes  no  difference  to  the  facts  discovered. 
Both  realms,  the  organic  and  the  inorganic,  are  mechanistic  at  the 
same  time  that  they  are  specific.  This  means  that  neither  realm 
is  purely  mechanical.  Each  furnishes  an  opportunity  for  applying 
mechanics  by  introducing  into  mechanistic  formulae  the  constants 
found  by  measuring  the  specific  properties  of  each  complex. 
Therefore,  if  this  view  be  called  vitalism,  there  is  no  difference 
between  vitalism  and  mechanism.  Vitalism  is  but  another 
word  for  not-pure  mechanism.  Both  theories  mean,  of  course, 
that  the  organism  can  be  analyzed  experimentally  and  formally. 
I  cannot  agree  then  with  M.  Bergson's  attack  on  the  analy- 
sis of  the  organism  or  with  that  peculiar  vitalistic  theory  of  his 
which  makes  all  complexes  unanalysable,  and  which  would  make 
everything  vitalistic.2 

1  Cf.  a  discussion  between  Messrs.  Hitter,  Jennings,  and  Lovejoy  in  Science,  1911, 
34,  Nos.  847,  851,  857,  859,  864.  For  a  fuller  exposition  of  the  position  taken  in 
this  section  of  this  essay,  see  my  paper,  The  Energy  of  Segmentation,  /.  of  Exp. 
Zoology,  4,  2,  284-315. 

*  Creative  Evolution,  162  and  225  et  passim. 


A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 


A  REALISTIC  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 
BY  WM.  PEPPERRELL  MONTAGUE 

INTRODUCTION 

REFLECTION  upon  the  fact  of  error  has  been  the  principal 
cause  for  the  abandonment  by  philosophers  of  the  standpoint  of 
natural  or  naive  realism.  According  to  that  view,  consciousness 
is  conceived  after  the  analogy  of  a  beam  of  light  which  reveals  the 
nature  of  the  very  world  of  which  it  is  itself  a  part.  And  as  the 
objects  revealed  by  a  light  in  no  sense  depend  upon  it  but  rather 
does  the  shining  of  the  light  depend  upon  them,  so  do  the  objects 
revealed  in  consciousness  in  no  sense  depend  upon  consciousness 
but  rather  does  the  occurrence  of  consciousness  depend  upon  them. 
When  it  is  found,  however,  that  some  of  the  objects  revealed  in 
consciousness  —  such  as  the  events  of  a  dream  —  have  no  place  of 
their  own  in  the  spatio-temporal  system  of  interacting  beings, 
but  appear  to  be  active  only  in  the  individual  who  experiences 
them,  there  arises  a  doubt  as  to  whether  consciousness  ever  directly 
reveals  any  other  obj  ects  than  the  states  of  the  one  who  is  con- 
scious. Instead  of  being  viewed  as  analogous  to  light,  conscious- 
ness is  now  regarded  as  analogous  to  a  photographic  plate  on  which 
objects  external  to  the  knower  are  represented  or  symbolized  by 
the  'ideas'  which  they  produce.  This  epistemological  dualism, 
however,  becomes  unsatisfactory  as  soon  as  it  is  realized  that  we 
can  ascribe  to  the  external  objects  inferred  as  the  causes  of  our  per- 
cepts no  locus  or  nature  other  than  that  of  the  percepts  themselves. 
Because  of  this,  the  copy  theory  of  knowledge  gives  place  to  the 
theory  of  epistemological  idealism  or  subjectivism,  according  to 
which  the  world  in  which  we  live  is  conceived  as  a  product,  fash- 
ioned by  consciousness  from  the  raw  materials  of  its  own  states. 
The  internal  contradictions  of  each  variety  of  this  third  theory, 

251 


252     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

the  manifold  difficulties  in  the  way  of  reconciling  any  form  of  it 
with  the  procedure  of  common  sense  and  of  science,  and,  finally, 
the  pathetic  dependence  of  consciousness  upon  the  very  objects 
which  it  is  supposed  to  create  —  have  brought  about  the  realistic 
revolt.  And  as  the  departure  from  realism  was  due  to  the  sub- 
jectivistic  interpretation  of  error,  so  the  return  to  realism  must 
be  based  upon  a  realistic  interpretation  of  error,  and  hence  of  its 
correlate  truth.  I  shall  treat  the  subject  under  three  main 
heads :  I,  The  Meaning  of  Truth  and  Error ;  II,  Causality  and 
Consciousness  in  a  World  of  Pure  Fact;  III,  The  Genesis  of 
Truth  and  Error. 


THE  MEANING  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

1.  Definition  of  True  and  False.  —  I  shall  use  the  term  'truth' 
to  connote    'true  knowledge'    and  the  term  'error'  to  connote 
'false  knowledge';    hence  the  definition  of  truth  and  error  will 
resolve  itself  into  the  definition  of  true  and  false.    I  hold  that 
the  true  and  the  false  are  respectively  the  real  and  the  unreal,  con- 
sidered as  objects  of  a  possible  belief  or  judgment.    There  is,  that  is 
to  say,  the  same  difference  between  what  is  real  and  what  is  true 
as  between  George  Washington  and  President  George  Washington. 
President  George  Washington  refers  to  Washington  in  a  certain 
relation  to  our  government.     George  Washington  denotes  pre- 
cisely the  same  individual  without  calling  attention  to  the  presi- 
dential relation. 

2.  The  Meaning  of  Real  and  Unreal.  —  Having  defined  the  true 
as  the  real  in  so  far  as  it  is  an  object  of  an  actual  or  possible 
belief,  we  seem  called  upon  to  go  on  to  define  the  real  and  to 
define  belief.     I  am  not  sure  that  we  should  not  be  justified  in 
refusing  to  comply  with  this  demand  on  either  one  of  two  grounds : 
(1)  that  'real'  and  'belief,'  so  far  as  their  connotation  is  concerned, 
are  ultimate  and  indefinable  terms  and  that  any  attempted  defi- 
nition would  be  circular ;  (2)  that  their  definition  would  be  super- 


THE  TRUE  AND  THE  REAL  253 

fluous  in  the  sense  that  whatever  definition  was  adopted,  the 
true  would  always  be  found  to  be  formally  and  denotatively 
identical  with  the  real.  That  is  to  say,  I  might  permit  the  reader 
to  adopt  his  own  view  of  the  meaning  of  real  —  whatever  that 
might  be,  and  then  without  criticising  it  at  all,  challenge  him 
to  show  any  difference  between  what  he  regarded  as  real  and 
what  he  regarded  as  true.  I  will  not,  however,  avail  myself  of 
this  plea,  further  than  to  say  that  my  definition  of  the  real,  if  it 
be  rejected,  should  not  be  taken  to  invalidate  my  thesis  as  to  its 
identity  with  the  true. 

I  shall  use  the  term  'subsistent'  to  denominate  any  one  of  the 
actual  and  possible  objects  of  thought.  The  subsistent,  as  thus  de- 
fined, is  the  only  class,  if  class  it  can  be  called,  which  has  no  nega- 
tive, as  is  at  once  evident  from  the  fact  that  if  we  formulate  in 
the  usual  way  what  should  be  its  negative,  viz:  'what  is  not  a 
possible  object  of  thought,'  we  have  —  if  our  words  mean  anything 
at  all  —  merely  another  'object  of  thought.'  In  short,  the  subsis- 
tent makes  an  absolute  summum  genus.  Moreover,  every  subsis- 
tent has  as  an  inseparable  aspect  of  its  meaning  an  'is'  relation 
to  some  other  subsistent ;  hence  every  subsistent  is  or  involves  a 
proposition.1  Now  there  is  one  great  group  of  these  subsistent 
objects  or  propositions  which  is  easily  distinguishable  from  the 
rest.  It  is  the  space-time  system.  It  has  for  its  elements  what  I 
will  call  '  events '  —  that  is,  groups  of  qualities  standing  in  the  ulti- 
mate relation  of  occupancy  to  one  time  and  one  place.  This  use  of 
the  term  'event'  may  be  criticised  on  the  ground  that  what  we 
call  events  usually  take  a  certain  amount  of  time  and  hence  include 
in  their  meaning  the  notions  of  duration  and  change.  Nevertheless 
I  can  think  of  no  better  word  than  events  to  indicate  the  elemental 
particulars  of  the  existing  world.  These  ultimate  particulars  must 

1  That  every  subsistent  is  or  involves  a  proposition  should  not  be  interpreted  as 
incompatible  with  the  self-evident  truth  that  the  terms  which  stand  as  subjects  and 
predicates  of  propositions  also  subsist.  I  mean  only  that  as  no  term  subsists  apart 
from  an  identity-complex  or  proposition,  the  totality  of  terms  denotes  the  totality 
of  propositions.  I  shall  use  the  word  '  object '  as  equivalent  to  term-complex. 


254     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

be  the  terms,  themselves  changeless  and  durationless,  between  which 
the  relations  of  change  and  duration  obtain.  They  are  the  occu- 
pants of  single  spaces  at  single  moments,  the  temporal  cross- 
sections  of  single  objects.  The  ordinary  units  of  physical  analysis 
are  enduring  things,  spatially  simple  but  temporally  complex, 
like  atoms  or  electrons,  which  are  spoken  of  as  'changing/  'act- 
ing,' 'causing,'  etc.  So  deeply  rooted  in  thought  and  language 
is  this  usage  that  it  is  difficult  to  avoid,  and  in  this  article  I  have 
often  relapsed  into  it.  And  yet,  but  little  reflection  is  needed  to 
show  that  we  have  the  right  and  indeed  the  duty  of  dividing  the 
world  not  only  'vertically'  in  space  into  substance-units,  but, 
also  'horizontally'  in  time  into  phase-units. 

Now  because  of  the  qualitative  complexity  of  these  event-ele- 
ments, each  one  of  them  constitutes  in  itself  at  least  one  proposi- 
tion, —  proposition  being  taken,  as  above,  to  denote  a  complex,  in 
which  may  always  be  distinguished  two  terms  related  by  some 
tense  and  number  of  the  verb  to  be.1  Thus  the  occurrence  of  an 
explosion  at  a  given  time,  in  a  given  place,  is  an  event  and  may  be 
expressed  in  the  proposition  —  "The  matter-and-motion  complex 
of  qualities  (called  'explosion')  is  what  occurred  in  the  spatio- 
temporal  region,  Si,ti."  The  momentary  qualitative  state  of  a 
resting  or  moving  body  could  in  the  same  way  be  made  the  sub- 
ject of  a  proposition  whose  predicate  would  be  'occurred  in  a 
given  time  and  place.'  Besides  the  events  themselves  and  their 
internal  identities  just  mentioned,  there  are  in  the  spatio-temporal 
system  the  spatial  and  temporal  relations  between  specific  events. 
These,  too,  can  obviously  be  expressed  as  propositions  as,  for  ex- 
ample, "The  death  of  Socrates  is  a  thing  that  happened  before  the 
death  of  Kant."  When  the  temporal  aspect  of  an  event  is  not  of 
especial  interest  the  proposition  will  be  a  relation  not  between 

1  The  verb  to  be  when  used  as  a  copula  in  a  proposition  indicates  absence  of 
duality  of  denotation,  or  position,  combined  with  presence  of  duality  of  internal 
nature,  or  connotation.  Thus  when  we  say,  "  Iron  is  useful "  we  call  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  connotative  duality  of  iron  and  useful  is  combined  with  denotative 
unity.  (Cf .  my  article  on  The  Meaning  of  Identity,  etc.,  in  The  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol., 
etc.,  3,  127.) 


SUBSISTENCE  AND  EXISTENCE  255 

events  but  between  'enduring  things  or  beings.'  (An  'enduring 
thing'  may  be  defined  as  a  temporally  continuous  series  of  events 
which  are  more  or  less  the  same  in  quality  and  which  do  not  at 
any  one  moment  occupy  discontinuous  regions  of  space.)  "Cae- 
sar lived  before  Napoleon,"  or  "Caesar  resembled  Napoleon," 
would  be  examples  of  such  propositions.  Now  the  propositions 
so  far  considered  all  deal  in  one  way  or  another  with  elements 
of  the  spatio-temporal  system  or  with  groups  of  these  elements. 
They  are  what  are  usually  called  existential  propositions.  But 
there  is  another  class  of  identity  relations  to  be  found  in  the  spatio- 
temporal  system,  viz.,  relations  between  parts  or  aspects  of  differ- 
ent events.  Now  as  all  the  qualities  (including  the  generic  spa- 
tial and  temporal  qualities  themselves)  which  are  exemplified  at 
various  times  and  places  —  may  be  exemplified  equally  well  at 
other  times  and  places,  the  relations  of  identity  that  hold  be- 
tween them  will  have  a  reality  that  is  independent  of  any  par- 
ticular existence.  These  relations  constitute  our  'universal'  and 
so-called  'nor -existential'  or  'merely  valid'  propositions.  Ex- 
amples of  such  propositions  would  be  "Orange  resembles  yellow 
more  than  green"  f  "7  +  5  =  12" ;  "What  is  true  of  a  class  is 
true  of  each  member  of  a  class,"  etc.  These  relations  are  presup- 
posed or  implied  by  the  spatio-temporal  system  of  existent  ob- 
jects. So  we  can  say  that  the  real  universe  consists  of  the  space- 
time  system  of  existents,  together  with  all  that  is  presupposed  by 
that  system.  And  as  every  reality  can  be  regarded  as  a  true  iden- 
tity-complex or  proposition,  and  as  each  proposition  has  one  and 
only  one  contradictory,  we  may  say  that  the  remainder  of  the 
realm  of  subsistent  objects  must  consist  of  the  false  propositions 
or  unrealities,  particular  and  universal,  which  contradict  the  true 
propositions  comprising  reality. 

And  now  as  to  the  definition  of  belief  —  I  will  say  merely  that 
it  is  the  attitude  we  take  toward  any  proposition  that  appears 
to  be  true  or  real,  and  that  it  carries  with  it  a  tendency  to  act  on 
that  proposition.  But  what  it  means  for  a  proposition  to  'ap- 
pear' to  be  true,  and  how  false  propositions  can  appear  true, 


256     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

we  shall  have  to  consider  in  the  later   sections    of    our    dis- 
cussion. 

3.  Objections  to  the  Definitions.  The  Verbal  Fallacy  of  Psycho- 
physical  Metonymy. — An  objection  to  this  identification  of  the 
true  and  real  now  presents  itself.  True  and  false,  it  will  be 
said,  are  adjectives  which  apply  to  beliefs,  that  is,  to  the  acts  or 
states  of  an  individual.  We  do  not  call  objects  true  or  false ;  we 
call  them  real  or  unreal — beliefs  alone  are  susceptible  of  truth 
and  falsity.  To  which  it  may  be  replied  that  true  and  false  only 
apply  to  beliefs  in  a  metonymous  or  borrowed  sense,  i.e.  in  virtue  of 
the  relation  of  the  act  of  believing  to  the  object  believed  in. 
There  would  be  no  sense  in  calling  an  act  of  belief  as  such  either 
true  or  false.  It  is  always  because  of  what  is  believed  that  the 
belief  is  true  or  false.  Belief  borrows  its  truth  or  falsity  from 
its  object  or  content.  When  we  speak  of  a  belief  as  true  we 
mean  that  the  thing  believed  is  a  fact,  is  real,  is  so,  is  true. 
Language  is  full  of  similar  instances  in  which  words  that  properly 
apply  only  to  objects  in  a  certain  relation  are  used  as  if  they 
applied  to  the  relation  itself.  When  we  say — "What  a  fine 
sight ! "  we  do  not  mean  that  the  act  of  seeing  or  process  of  see- 
ing is  fine ;  and  yet  the  word  'sight'  to  which  the  adjective  'fine' 
was  applied  does  mean,  primarily,  the  act  of  seeing.  We  have 
used  it  metonymously  to  indicate  the  thing  seen.  I  call  a  neg- 
lect of  this  ambiguity  the  verbal  fallacy  of  psychophysical  me- 
tonymy. The  ambiguous  use  of  the  word  'thought'  offers  another 
example  of  it.  Thought  means  primarily  the  act  of  thinking,  yet 
when  we  say,  "A  penny  for  your  thoughts,"  we  do  not  desire 
to  know  about  the  acts  or  processes  of  thinking  that  are  taking 
place  in  our  neighbor's  organism,  but  about  the  things  or  objects 
of  which  he  is  thinking.  As  it  is  with  'thoughts,'  'sights,'  and 
'beliefs,'  so  it  is  with  judgments  which  are  the  expressions  or 
utterances  of  beliefs.  Judgment,  like  belief,  is  originally  a 
name  for  an  act  or  process  on  the  part  of  an  individual ;  both 
words  have  come  also  to  be  used  to^denote  what  is  believed  and 
what  is  judged,/ i.e.  the  proposition  or  identity-complex  asserted. 


VERBAL  FALLACY  OF  METONYMY  257 

Truth  and  falsity  never  attach  to  judgments  or  beliefs  in  the 
first  sense,  but  only  in  the  second.  In  other  words,  they  attach 
to  propositions  or  objects,  and  not  to  judgments  as  acts.  If 
the  thing  believed  is  a  fact,  the  judgment  expressing  it  is  true ; 
if  not  a  fact,  then  the  judgment  is  called  false.  But  in  case  any 
doubt  on  this  point  still  remains  in  the  reader's  mind,  let  me  put 
this  question :  If  we  wished  to  know  whether  certain  beliefs 
that  we  held  about  the  properties  of  triangles  were  true  or  false, 
whom  should  we  consult?  The  psychologist?  Certainly  not. 
We  should  go  to  the  mathematician.  But  why?  The  psycholo- 
gist is  supposed  to  be  an  expert  on  mental  processes,  and  if  the  ad- 
jectives true  and  false  were  to  apply  to -beliefs  as  mental  processes, 
he  would  be  the  one  to  settle  our  difficulties.  We  should  go  to  the 
mathematician,  however,  because  our  desire  to  know  whether 
our  beliefs  about  triangles  were  true  or  false  could  be  satisfied 
only  by  one  who  knew  about  triangles.  So  with  all  cases  of  doubt 
as  to  truth  and  falsity,  we  go  to  the  person  who  knows  about  the 
things  believed  rather  than  to  him  who  knows  about  the  processes 
or  acts  of  believing.  That  true  and  false  apply  to  belief  in  the 
objective  sense  will  appear  still  more  clearly  if  we  realize  that  there 
are  many  other  adjectives  that  apply  to  belief  in  its  subjective 
sense.  If,  for  example,  instead  of  being  interested  in  the  truth 
or  falsity  of  a  belief  we  were  interested  in  whether  it  were  com- 
forting, inspiring,  or  healthy,  then  we  should,  very  likely,  go  to 
the  psychologist  rather  than  to  one  who  was  an  authority  on 
the  subject  matter  of  the  belief. 

4.  First  Consequence  of  the  Verbal  Fallacy  of  Psychophysical 
Metonymy.  —  Besides  obscuring  the  true  meaning  of  the  true  and 
the  false  (as  denoting  the  real  and  unreal  respectively),  this  con- 
fusion of  the  subjective  with  the  objective  senses  of  such  words  as 
belief  and  judgment  has  had  two  consequences  so  important  for  the 
understanding,  or  rather  misunderstanding,  of  the  realistic  po- 
sition, that  I  wish  to  consider  them  even  at  the  cost  of  digressing 
from  our  immediate  issue. 

.The  first  of  these  consequences  of  the  'verbal  fallacy  of  psycho- 


258     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

physical  metonymy,'  is  well  illustrated  by  the  principal  Berkeleian 
argument  for  idealism.  That  argument,  as  I  have  elsewhere 
stated,1  consists  in  a  seemingly  valid  syllogism  in  Barbara,  whose 
middle  term  'idea'  has,  however,  the  same  kind  of  ambiguity  as 
the  term  belief.  The  argument  may  be  expressed  as  follows : 
Ideas  are  incapable  of  existing  apart  from  a  mind.  Physical  ob- 
jects in  so  far  as  they  are  perceived  or  known  at  all  are  certainly 
'ideas.'  All  physical  objects  are,  therefore,  incapable  of  exist- 
ing apart  from  a  mind.  Now  this  syllogism  is  formally  valid, 
and  each  of  the  premises  is  materially  true.  Its  conclusion  has 
been  accepted,  albeit  with  reluctance  and  anger,  by  many  genera- 
tions of  students  of  philosophy.  The  argument  appears  irrefut- 
able until  we  notice  that  the  middle  term  'idea'  is  used  in  the 
major  premise  to  denote  the  act  or  process  of  perceiving,  while 
in  the  minor  premise  it  is  used  to  denote  the  object  of  that  act, 
i.e.  the  thing  or  content  that  is  perceived.  Each  of  these  uses  of 
the  term  idea  is  familiar  and  justifiable  in  itself ;  it  is  only  when  they 
are  identified  with  one  another  that  the  absurdity  arises.  Now  a 
more  modern  and  widespread  form  of  this  fallacy  consists  not  in  a 
play  upon  the  word  idea,  but  in  a  play  upon  the  word  'experience.' 
Experience  has  a  good  concrete  flavor  and  is  much  affected  by 
empiricists.  It  is  a  term  more  comprehensive  than  idea,  and  less 
suggestive  of  the  over-intellectualism  of  the  eighteenth  century 
psychology.  It  is  regarded  as  such  an  ultimate  sort  of  concept 
as  to  need  no  definition.  It  is  self-luminous,  and  everything  is 
to  be  defined  in  terms  of  it  as  constituting  our  ultimate  universe 
of  discourse.  Disliking  to  lay  hands  on  so  popular  a  fetish,  I 
must  yet  point  out  that,  like  belief,  thought,  and  idea,  the  word 
experience,  which  means  first  and  primarily  an  act  or  process  which 
an  organism  performs  or  undergoes  in  becoming  conscious  of  ob- 
jects, has  come  by  metonymy  to  be  used  also  in  a  quite  different 
sense,  denoting  not  only  the  process  or  state  of  being  conscious 
but  the  objects  of  which  we  are  conscious.  Now  taken  in  this 
latter  sense,  we  may  say  that  no  objects  exist  outside  the  world 

1  Program  and  First  Platform  of  Six  Realists,  see  Appendix. 


THE  BERKELEIAN  FALLACY  259 

of  experience.  For  the  only  world  that  we  can  know  or  discuss 
is  the  world  that  we  experience.  But  to  say  this  is  very  different 
from  saying  that  experience  in  the  first  sense,  i.e.  as  a  conscious 
process,  is  a  sine  qua  non  of  real  objects.  If  we  allow  ourselves 
to  play  fast  and  loose  with  the  word,  we  get  a  theory  which  is  in  re- 
ality thoroughgoing  subjectivism  but  which  has  the  appearance  of 
a  sort  of  scientifically  empirical  compromise  between  realism  and 
subjectivism.  If  we  ask  of  those  who  use  the  word  in  this  double 
sense  for  some  statement  as  to  what  they  have  in  mind  when  they 
say  "experience,"  we  may  be  told  that  experience  is  that  which 
polarises  itself  into  pairs  of  correlative  and  mutually  reciprocal 
opposites,  such  as  subject  and  object,  physical  and  psychical,  in- 
dividual consciousness  and  social  consciousness,  knower  and 
known;  and  that  these  terms  and  their  relations  are  all  within 
experience,  and  constituted  by  it  as  its  functions.  When  we  ask  for 
some  example  of  what  this  primordial  stuff  called  experience  is, 
we  shall  doubtless  be  referred  to  tables,  chairs,  stars,  mountains, 
and  such-like  familiar  objects.  Suppose  we  ask  further  whether 
these  pieces  of  so-called  'experience'  are  not  what  common 
sense  means  by  'things/  and  whether  the  behavior  of  the  things 
which  we  experience  does  not  clearly  indicate  that  they  antedate 
and  even  condition  our  experience  of  them  and  are  consequently 
quite  capable  of  existing  independently  of  such  experience.  We 
shall  probably  be  told  that  the  only  things  we  can  know  are  ex- 
perienced things,  that  an  experienced  thing  is  in  so  far  forth  an 
experience  and  that,  as  you  cannot  of  course  have  an  experience 
which  is  not  some  sort  of  a  conscious  process,  therefore  objects  ' 
cannot  in  any  intelligible  sense  be  believed  or  even  imagined  to 
exist  apart  from  consciousness.  We  may  then  bring  up  various 
examples  of  'external  relations,'  i.e.  relations  which  are  not  neces- 
sary to  the  existence  of  the  terms  related.  We  may  cite  the  rela- 
tion of  pointing,  where  it  is  quite  clear  that  the  thing  pointed  at 
does  not  in  any  way  depend  upon  the  fact  that  it  stands  in  that 
relation,  and  then  ask  whether  the  experiencing  or  cognizing  of 
an  object  may  not  be  analogous  to  pointing ;  from  which  it  would 


260     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

follow  that  the  thing  experienced  would  not  more  depend  on  the 
experiencing  of  it  than  a  thing  pointed  at  depends  on  the  point- 
ing at  it.  To  which  we  shall  be  told  that  there  is  no  analogy  be- 
tween pointing  and  experiencing  and  that  it  is  essentially  absurd 
to  distinguish  between  things  known  and  the  knowing  of  them. 
The  situation  amounts  to  this :  the  constant  use  of  the  one  word 
experience  to  denote  both  an  experiencing  and  an  experienced 
has  produced  in  the  mind  of  the  idealist  a  curious  delusion  that 
these  things  are  connected,  not  merely  verbally  in  his  own  mind 
but  materially  in  nature,  and  in  such  a  way  that  the  objects  that  we 
experience  can  only  exist  at  the  moments  when  they  are  experi- 
enced. Thus  the  consequence  of  the  verbal  fallacy  of  psycho- 
physical  metonymy  has  been  to  create  an  atmosphere  and  a  ter- 
minology that  makes  this  experientialistic  idealism  seem  not 
merely  true  but  axiomatic  —  indeed  almost  a  matter  of  verbal 
definition.  Under  such  circumstances  it  is  hard  to  get  even  an 
understanding  of  what  realism  is.  It  appears  indeed  to  these 
experientialists  so  false  as  to  be  meaningless ;  and  those  who  de- 
fend realism  are  actually  charged  with  raising  an  issue  that  is 
artificial.  The  only  type  of  realism  that  possesses  any  meaning 
in  the  eyes  of  the  experientialists  is  the  old  Cartesian  dualistic 
theory  of  a  system  of  objects  wholly  outside  and  beyond  the  world 
of  which  we  are  conscious.  But  it  is  the  distinguishing  feature 
of  the  new  realism  to  maintain  the  independent  existence  not  of 
hypothetical  objects  which  we  do  not  experience,  but  of  the  very 
objects  that  we  do  experience.  And  the  comprehension  of  this 
doctrine  is  impossible  to  any  one  who  refuses  to  distinguish  between 
a  thing  that  is  experienced  and  the  experiencing  of  that  thing. 

5.  Second  Consequence  of  .the  Verbal  Fallacy  of  Psychophysical 
Metonymy.  —  The  second  consequence  of  the  verbal  fallacy  of 
psychophysical  metonymy  consists  in  a  misconception  of  the 
'laws  of  thought'  and  hence  of  the  meaning  and  subject  matter 
of  formal  logic. 

A  law  is  a  relation  between  things  that  is  true  or  real,  if  not 
at  all  moments,  at  least  at  more  moments  than  one.  These  laws 


THE  DUPLICITY  OF  EXPERIENCE  261 

differ  in  generality.  Some  laws  hold  of  things  only  in  so  far  as 
they  are  extended ;  other  laws  hold  of  all  things  in  so  far  as  they 
are  quantitative,  irrespective  of  their  possessing  extent.  Finally, 
there  are  a  few  laws  like  the  principles  of  non-contradiction, 
and  excluded  middle  and  the  dictum  de  omni,  that  hold  of  all  things 
alike,  whatever  their  particular  natures  may  be.  These  laws  are 
sufficiently  important  and  distinctive  to  be  the  concern  of  a  spe- 
cial science  —  the  science  of  logic.  Now  every  law  of  things  is  a 
law  of  thought  in  the  sense  that  thought  about  those  things  will 
be  true  or  not  according  as  it  does  or  does  not  conform  to  their 
laws.  And  in  this  sense  the  laws  of  chemistry  and  botany  are  laws 
of  thought.  The  laws  studied  in  logic  because  of  their  absolute 
generality  are  presupposed  by  the  more  concrete  laws.  And  as 
they  hold  good  of  every  subject  or  topic  to  which  thought  can  be 
directed  they  must  be  taken  account  of  by  all  thought  regardless 
of  its  more  specific  subject  matter.  It  is  only  on  account  of  this 
universality  that  they  have  come  by  their  misleading  name  of 
"laws  of  thought."  There  is  absolutely  nothing  psychological 
about  them.  They  are  in  themselves  as  independent  of  our  con- 
sciousness of  them  as  the  more  concrete  relations  between 
the  elements  of  physics.1  And  yet,  it  may  be  said,  psychology 
does  enter  into  every  treatise  on  logic  to  some  extent  and  in 
some  way,  and  our  conception  of  the  purely  objective  and  extra- 
mental  nature  of  the  subject  matter  of  logic  would  seem  not 
to  allow  for  this.  To  which  we  may  reply  that  psychology  enters 
in  the  same  purely  subsidiary  way  into  the  proper  learning  and 
teaching  of  any  other  branch  of  knowledge.  It  is  necessary  not 
only  to  learn  the  laws  pertaining  to  any  group  of  things  but  to 
learn  also  the  particular  mental  tendencies  that  aid  or  hinder 
our  mastery  of  those  laws.  Just  as  the  astronomer,  in  order  to 
pursue  effectively  his  study  of  the  objective  properties  and  laws 
of  the  stars,  must  have  some  knowledge  of  the  technique  of  the 
telescope,  the  camera,  and,  finally,  of  the  'personal  equation' 

1  For  a  more  extended  demonstration  of  the  non-mental  nature  of  the  laws  of 
logic,  cf.  Marvin,  supra,  54  seq. 


262     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

or  peculiar  features  of  his  own  mentality  which  are  likely  to  distort 
his  observations,  so  the  logician,  in  order  to  understand  and  obey  the 
objective  laws  of  logical  implication,  must  have  some  knowledge  of 
the  mental  habits  and  tendencies  which  are  likely  to  interfere  with  his 
conforming  to  those  laws.  In  short,  the  psychological  study  of 
general  types  of  fallacy  is  a  necessary  but  purely  subsidiary  ad- 
junct to  logic,  just  as  the  psychological  study  of  more  special  types 
of  fallacy  is  a  necessary  adjunct  to  the  chemist  or  the  statisti- 
cian. Logic,  like  every  science,  has  its  special  psychology  and  its 
special  pedagogy  as  parts  of  its  technique.  But  to  infer  from  this 
that  logic  is  a  mental  science  would  be  as  wrong  as  to  infer  that 
astronomy  was  a  branch  of  the  science  of  optics. 

6.  Summary.  —  To  sum  up  this  first  section  of  our  discussion: 
I  have  tried  to  show  (1)  that  truth  and  error  are  respectively  the 
belief  in  what  is  real  and  the  belief  in  what  is  unreal ;  (2)  that  by 
real,  or  true,  is  meant  the  totality  of  propositions  comprising  the 
spatial  and  temporal  system  of  interrelated  'events'  or  'elemental 
particulars/  together  with  all  that  may  be  presupposed  or  implied 
by  this  system ;  and  that  by  unreal,  or  false,  is  meant  the  totality 
of  propositions,  which  are  contradictories  of  the  above,  and 
which  comprise  all  the  actual  or  possible  objects  of  thought  that 
neither  have  a  place  in  the  spatio-temporal  system  nor  are  implied 
by  it ;  (3)  that  the  objection  to  identifying  the  true  and  the  real 
is  based  on  the  failure  to  realize  that  when  true  and  false  are  used 
as  adjectives  modifying  belief,  the  word  belief  is  used  in  the  physi- 
cal or  objective  sense  of  'thing  believed'  rather  than  in  the  psy- 
chical or  subjective  sense  of  'believing';  (4)  that  this  'verbal 
fallacy  of  psychophysical  metonymy,'  which  consists  in  the  con- 
fused identification  of  the  objective  and  subjective  senses  of  such 
words  as  belief,  thought,  idea,  experience,  has  resulted  not  only 
in  the  erroneous  notion  that  the  true  is  mental  in  its  nature  and 
different  from  the  real,  but  in  the  formulation  of  a  proof  of  ideal- 
ism which,  though  seemingly  axiomatic,  is  in  reality  grossly  equi- 
vocal; (5)  that  as  a  further  consequence  of  this  fallacy  of 


LOGIC  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  263 

metonymy  there  has  arisen  the  false  notion  that  logic  is  a  branch 
of  psychology,  and  that  the  '  laws  of  thought '  relate  to  our  think- 
ing instead  of  to  what  we  think  about. 

II 

CAUSALITY  AND   CONSCIOUSNESS  IN   A  WORLD   OF  PURE   FACT 

1.  Space,  Time,  and  Quality  as  the  Ultimates  of  Factual  Analysis. 
—  We  have  now  to  discover  the  meaning  and  place  of  con- 
sciousness in  the  world  of  its  objects,  and  to  this  end  we  must 
examine  again  and  more  closely  the  nature  of  that  world.  First 
of  all,  the  world  is  a  spatial  system.  Its  groups  of  qualities  are 
exemplified  in  a  three-dimensional  reversible  manifold  of  posi- 
tions, each  of  which  is  outside  of  every  other.  But  secondly, 
this  spatial  system  is  not  merely  spatial,  it  is  also  temporal  —  each 
position  'extends'  infinitely  into  the  past  and  future.  This  tem- 
poral manifold,  if  for  purposes  of  analysis  we  abstract  from  its 
asymmetrical  or  irreversible  character,  can  be  regarded  quite  as 
though  it  were  a  fourth  dimension  of  space,  and  as  each  spatial 
position  or  point  extends  infinitely  in  time,  so  does  each  temporal 
position  or  instant  extend  infinitely  in  space.  Looked  at  in  this 
way  the  existent  world  can  be  characterized  as  a  four-dimensional 
manifold  of  quality-groups,  the  units  of  which  would  be  the  quali- 
ties actualized  in  any  one  place  at  any  one  moment.  It  would  be 
easy  from  this  point  of  view  to  describe  as  functions  of  space,  time, 
and  quality  various  less  fundamental  concepts.  For  example, 

(1)  One  quality-group,  one  space,  one  time  =  event. 

(2)  Same  qualities,  different  spaces,  or  different  times  =  quali- 
tative identity;    similarity;    species;    class. 

(3)  Different  qualities,   same  space,    same  time  =  numerical 
identity;    coinherence  of  attributes  in  one  thing;    'isness.' 

(4)  Same  qualities,  in  same  space  at  continuously  different 
times  =  duration;  rest.  (Russell.) 

(5)  Same  qualities,  in  same  space  at  discontinuously  different 
times  =  succession,  time  interval. 


264     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

(6)  Qualities  partly  same,  partly  different,  same  space,  different 
times  =  one  thing  undergoing  change  of  state. 

(7)  Same  or  different  qualities,  same  time,  continuously  differ- 
ent spaces  =  one  extended  thing. 

(8)  Same  or  different  qualities,   same  time,   discontinuously 
different  spaces  =  plurality  of  extended  things,  distance. 

(9)  Same  qualities,  continuously  different  spaces,  continuously 
different  times  =  moving  thing.     (Russell.) 

(10)  Qualities  that  change  with  change  of  space  and  time  re- 
lations =  mere  states;    accidents. 

(11)  Qualities   (if   such    there    be)    that    remain  unchanged 
through  all  change  of  space  and  time  relations  =  ultimate  ele- 
ments of  quality;    permanent  substances. 

Now  if  the  reader  will  overlook  the  schematic  and  incomplete 
character  of  this  analysis,  he  will  perhaps  admit  that  it  serves  to 
describe  fairly  the  world  of  sensible  objects.  So  far  as  I  can  see 
there  is  no  merely  objective  situation  but  what  can  be  adequately 
described  as  some  function  or  complex  of  our  three  ultimates  — 
space,  time,  and  quality.  But  there  are  two  categories  that  we  are 
accustomed  to  recognize  in  our  world  which  we  do  not  find  in  the 
system  just  portrayed.  First,  no  place  can  be  found  in  this  sys- 
tem for  'causality,'  i.e.  for  a  thing  determining  and  being  determined 
by  other  things.  And  secondly,  no  place  can  be  found  for  'con- 
sciousness,' i.e.  for  a  thing  cognizing  and  being  cognized  by  other 
things.  The  system  before  us  is  purely  descriptive  and  purely 
objective  and  contains  no  trace  of  the  productive  or  the  subjec- 
tive functions.  That  both  causality  and  consciousness  are  real 
in  some  sense,  none  will  deny.  That  an  otherwise  adequate  de- 
scription of  the  world  which  leaves  one  of  them  out  should  leave 
out  the  other  also,  is,  as  I  shall  try  to  show,  profoundly  signifi- 
cant of  the  relation  between  them.  But  before  considering  their 
relation,  we  had  best  consider  them  separately. 

2.  The  Antinomy  of  Causality  —  Substantist  '  Thesis '  and  Posi- 
tivist  'Antithesis.'  —  We  find  as  a  matter  of  observation  that  there 
are  a  number  of  uniform  connections  between  the  event-elements 


THE  CATEGORIES  OF  PURE  FACT  265 

composing  our  spatio-temporal  world.  Each  of  these  event-ele- 
ments, it  will  be  remembered,  was  defined  as  a  quality-group  oc- 
cupying some  one  space  at  some  one  time.  In  the  simple 
continua  of  space  and  time  and  in  the  dual  continuum  of  space- 
time  or  motion  these  events  were  all  external  to  one  another  and 
contingently  related  in  the  sense  that  there  was  no  reason  why  any 
event  should  not  be  related  in  any  one  of  these  continua  to  any 
other  event.  And  yet  we  find,  with  respect  to  any  specific  quality- 
group,  that  there  are  two  other  specific  quality-groups  that  respec- 
tively precede  and  follow  it,  usually  if  not  always ;  e.g.  fire  usually 
burns  wood,  water  usually  quenches  fire.  Now,  as  far  as  our  space- 
time  system  goes,  all  sequences  should  be  determined  by  chance, 
and  the  probability  of  wood-in-fire  being  followed  by  smoke-and- 
ashes  would  be  at  least  no  greater  than  the  probability  against  it. 
In  fact,  as  there  are  always  fewer  ways  in  which  a  complex  can 
happen  than  in  which  it  can  fail  to  happen,  the  probability  that 
any  given  sequence  of  events  would  regularly  recur  is  indefinitely 
small.  And  yet  sequences  do  regularly  recur,  and  indeed  the  more 
we  know  of  nature  the  more  uniformities  we  discover.  It  is 
clear  then  that  in  our  analysis  of  the  existing  world  we  have  so 
far  omitted  to  take  account  of  a  certain  relation  which  is  not 
spatial,  temporal,  spatio-temporal,  or  qualitative.  It  is  the  rela- 
tion of  determining  and  being  determined  by,  of  cause  and  effect. 
Each  event-element  has  over  and  above  its  own  qualities  and  its 
own  position  in  space  and  tune,  something  which  implies  or  re- 
fers to  other  events.  It  is  both  an  agent  and  a  patient  of  what  is 
not  itself.  Let  us  call  this  agent-patient  property  of  a  thing  its 
potentiality  or  power.  The  simplest  examples  as  well  as  the  most 
useful  of  this  category  of  power  are  to  be  found  in  connection  with 
the  atoms,  ether,  and  energy  of  physical  science.  The  ideal  atoms 
or  corpuscles  of  physics  are  things,  all  just  alike,  'of  little  or  no 
extent,  that  preserve  whatever  properties  they  may  have  un- 
changed from  moment  to  moment  of  time  and  from  point  to  point 
in  space.  The  primary  function  of  the  atom  would  seem  to  be  the 
power  to  give,  receive,  and  maintain  motion.  The  ideal  ether  of 


266     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

physics  would  be  one  permanent  medium  of  great  or  infinite  ex- 
tent, the  primary  function  of  which  would  seem  to  be  the  power 
to  produce,  receive,  and  transmit  electro-magnetic  oscillation. 
Energy  could  perhaps  be  defined  as  that  power  in  moving  atoms 
or  ether  which  causes  their  motion  to  persist  or  at  least  to  recur 
unchanged  through  time.  The  great  achievement  of  modern 
science  consists  in  the  correlation  of  the  various  kinds  of  hetero- 
geneous qualities  and  qualitative  changes  with  the  continuous 
and  homogeneous  relations  and  changes  of  relation  between  these 
perduring  qualities  or  substances.  The  system  of  their  space  and 
time  relations,  functions  as  a  common  denominator  to  which  the 
incommensurate  qualities  of  matter  and  energy  can  all  be  reduced, 
and  so  compared  one  with  another.  It  is  consequently  very  natural 
that  under  such  circumstances  power  should  in  some  sense  be 
ascribed  to  these  all-important  elements,  but  there  are  two  fun- 
damentally opposed"  methods  of  interpreting  the  nature  of  that 
power.  These  two  methods  or  attitudes  I  will  call  the  posilivistic 
and  the  substantistic. 

The  positivist  recognizes  the  value  of  attributing  causal  power  to 
these  substances  when  describing  the  actual  world  of  qualities,  but 
he  says  their  sole  reality  as  powers  is  methodological.  They  are 
'useful  fictions'  or  'shorthand  formulae'  by  means  of  which  we 
can  describe,  predict,  and  control  the  routine  of  qualitative 
changes  in  actual  concrete  objects.  They  are  permanent  pos- 
sibilities of  what  is  real,  but  they  are  not  real  themselves. 
•  They  are,  in  short,  merely  subjective.  To  this  the  substantist  replies 
that  it  is  absurd  to  relegate  to  the  status  of  methodological  fictions 
the  very  powers  in  terms  of  whose  activities  the  whole  realm  of  qual- 
ities can  be  expressed.  It  is  rather  the  manifestations  or  appear- 
ances of  power  which  should  be  regarded  as  unreal  or  merely  subjec- 
tive, or  as  at  best,  mere  'epiphenomenal '  states  of  the  interacting 
substances.  As  to  what  further  nature  these  substance-powers 
have  and  as  to  whether  they  differ  in  kind,  the  substantists  differ 
from  one  another.  Historically,  there  seem  to  be  four  main  types 
or  schools  of  substantism,  which  I  will  briefly  enumerate : 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  CAUSALITY  267 

(1)  Materialists  —  Those  who  content  themselves  with  postu- 
lating the  existence  of  power  only  in  the  kind  of  substances  use- 
ful in  physical  science,  the  atoms,  ether,  etc.,  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking. 

(2)  Spiritualists  —  Those  who  postulate  the  existence  of  power 
in  certain  obscure  but  perduring  elements  of   self-consciousness 
which  thereby  become  'souls'  or  'egos/  i.e.  powers,  which  mani- 
fest their  efficiencies  primarily  in  the  psychical  and  only  second- 
arily in  the  physical  quality-groups. 

(3)  Dualists  —  Those  who  attribute  power  to  both  kinds  of 
substances  —  to  those  which  interact  in  space  to  produce  '  states ' 
of  matter  and  to  other  entities  which  act  upon  those  of  the  first 
kind  and  perhaps  upon  one  another  to  produce  'states'  of  mind 
and  of  spirit. 

(4)  Energists  —  Those   who   reduce   their   hypostatization   of 
power  to  a  minimum  and  merely  affirm  the  existence  of  a  force 
or  energy  associated  with  each  momentary  quality-group  such  that 
it  tends  regularly  to  produce  a  certain  other   quality-group  as 
its^  effect. 

To  all  four  of  these  schools  of  substantist  doctrine,  we  may 
imagine  the  positivist  to  reply  in  somewhat  the  following  manner : 
"Your  hypostatized  powers  differ  from  one  another  only  in  that 
some  of  them,  such  as  the  atomic,  are  useful  methodologically, 
and  others,  such  as  the  psychic,  are  not.  Whether  useful  or  useless, 
whether  many  and  elaborately  different,  or  whether  reducible 
to  one  type,  in  any  case  you  can  say  nothing  about  their  specific 
nature,  except  in  terms  of  their  behavior  or  effects.  The  cause  is 
nothing  but  the  permanent  possibility  of  its  effects.  The  meaning 
of  a  power's  own  nature  is  nothing  but  the  sum  of  its  consequences. 
The  'cash  value'  of  any  kind  of  potentiality  is  the  totality  of  its 
manifestations.  Because  it  is  methodologically  useful  to  name  a 
thing  in  terms  of  what  is  to  follow  from  it,  we  must  not  delude 
ourselves  into  thinking  that  the  potentiality  of  consequences 
is  anything  objectively  real.  Causal  power  is  not  a  subtle  prop- 
erty hidden  behind  the  actual  qualities  of  a  thing;  it  is  simply 


268     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

a  convenient  expression  for  our  expectation  that  the  future  conse- 
quences of  a  thing  will  resemble  its  past  consequences.  There  is 
absolutely  nothing  in  any  one  thing  that  determines,  necessitates, 
or  produces  any  other  thing." 

Apparently  the  only  answer  that  the  substantist  can  make  to 
this  presentation  of  the  positivist  position  is  to  reiterate  his  state- 
ment that  unless  there  were  actually  resident  in  each  event  some- 
thing which  determined  or  implied  other  events,  the  uniformities 
of  nature  would  be  miraculous  and  we  should  have  no  right  to 
expect  them.  For  to  deny  the  objective  reality  of  causal  power 
would  mean  a  purely  chance  distribution  of  events  in  their  rela- 
tion to  one  another.  And  as  we  have  seen,  if  mere  chance  held 
good  in  the  world,  the  probability  of  any  sequence  being  regularly 
repeated  would  be  infinitely  small. 

The  situation  amounts  to  this:  As  long  as  the  substantist 
maintains  that  causal  power  or,  more  generally  that  the  self -tran- 
scending implication  resident  in  events  is  not  merely  subjective, 
his  position  is  impregnable ;  while  as  long  as  the  positivist  main- 
tains that  this  potentiality  or  implicative  reference  of  an  object 
can  never  be  found  among  the  qualities  of  that  object,  his  position 
is  impregnable.  Let  us  leave  our  two  opponents  to  continue  a 
quarrel  which,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  must  be  interminable, 
and  turn  to  the  consideration  of  the  second  defect  in  our  spatio- 
temporal  system  of  events  —  its  failure  to  provide  any  place  for 
consciousness. 

3.  The  Main  Antinomy  of  Consciousness  —  Panhylist  'Antithe- 
sis '  and  Panpsychist  '  Thesis. '  —  There  are  two  opposing  ways  of 
meeting  the  problem  before  us  —  neither  of  them  satisfactory. 
One  of  them  is  called  panpsychism,  and  the  other  I  shall  call 
panhylism. 

The  panhylist  declares  that  the  only  things  that  are  actually 
real  are  physical  or  objective  things.  What  we  call  conscious- 
ness or  the  psychical  is  for  him  not  a  true  existent,  but  either 
an  epiphenomenon,  a  shadow  or  mirage  that  accompanies  brain 
processes,  or  else  a  mere  possibility  of  the  concomitant  variation 


SUBSTANTISM  AND  POSITIVISM  269 

and  'togetherness'  of  events  that  are  not  together  in  any  other 
sense.  The  first  form  of  panhylism  is  dualistic,  the  second  monis- 
tic. Their  main  agreement  consists  in  a  kind  of  psychophobia, 
a  hatred  of  consciousness  and  a  determination  to  drive  it  out  of 
the  world  of  real  existence.  The  dualistic  form  of  the  doctrine 
tries,  as  we  have  said,  to  accomplish  this  derealization  of  the  psy- 
chical by  relegating  it  to  the  status  of  an  epiphenomenon,  or  passive 
correlate  of  the  cerebral  events.  And  yet,  were  it  such,  it  could 
neither  sustain  cognitive  relations  to  the  objects  it  appears  to  know, 
nor  causal  relations  with  the  stimuli,  sensory  and  motor  with  which 
it  appears  to  interact.  To  say  with  this  theory  that  the  psychi- 
cal is  the  'other  side'  of  the  physical,  or  'parallel'  to  it,  is  to  use 
categories  which  by  their  definition  apply  only  to  relations  between 
objects  and  not  to  the  relation  between  objects  and  something 
that  is  not  an  object.  It  is  only  because  of  its  supposed  methodo- 
logical necessity  for  physiological  psychology  that  the  view  is 
tolerated  at  all.  To  accord  any  other  than  this  epiphenome- 
nal  status  to  the  psychical  appears  to  violate  the  physical  con- 
tinuity and  homogeneity  of  organic  action  and  with  it  the  doc- 
trine of  the  conservation  of  energy. 

But  if  the  dualistic  form  of  panhylism  is  bad,  the  monistic  is 
worse.  For  according  to  it  the  psychical  is  not  even  a  helpless 
epiphenomenon.  It  is  simply  a  possibility  that  a  living  organism 
possesses  of  varying  with,  or  behaving  towards,  certain  objects  at  a 
distance  from  it  in  time  and  space.  There  are  several  varieties 
of  this  doctrine,  no  one  of  which  appears  to  me  very  intelligible. 
The  trouble  with  all  of  them  is  that  they  deny  the  existence  of 
that  which  is  more  certainly  real  than  anything  else,  viz.,  my 
awareness  of  objects.  I  have  the  experience,  let  us  say,  of  per- 
ceiving a  chair.  I  am,  however,  forbidden  by  the  monistic  form 
of  panhylism  to  describe  the  experience  in  this  way.  I  must  not 
say  it  is  a  case  of  'my  perceiving  a  chair.'  I  must  only  say  it 
is  a  case  of  'chair.'  But  now  my  consciousness  of  chair  cannot 
be  merely  a  case  of  chair,  for  there  was  and  will  be  a  case  of 
chair  before  and  after  my  being  conscious  of  chair. 


270     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

Obviously  there  is  a  difference  between  my  consciousness  of 
objects  and  the  mere  objects,  for  my  consciousness  of  them  comes 
and  goes  according  to  conditions  in  my  brain.  But  they  do  not 
depend  on  my  brain  processes.  Moreover,  if  the  consciousness 
of  objects  is  just  objects,  how  shall  I  deal  with  a  case  in  which  you 
perceive  one  thing  occupying  a  given  place  in  the  spatio-temporal 
series  and  I  perceive  another  and  contradictory  grouping  of 
qualities  in  that  same  place  and  time?  If  two  contradictory  sets 
of  qualities  could  occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time,  we 
should  have  no  legitimate  way  of  distinguishing  between  the  real 
and  the  unreal.  In  the  effort  to  get  rid  of  the  subjective  we 
should  have  got  rid  of  the  objective.1  Perhaps  the  panhylist 
at  this  point  invokes  the  confused  and  vicious  concept  of 
'true  for  me.'  It  is  true  for  me,  he  will  say,  that  the  thing 
is  round  and  true  for  you  that  the  thing  is  square.  The 
thing  itself  is  both  round  and  square.  But  even  if  we  allowed 
the  panhylist  to  fill  his  now  thoroughly  Protagorean  world  with 
round  squares,  and  noisy  silences,  his  notion  of  true  for  me  and 
false  for  you  would  still  not  avail,  for  in  that  world  there  could 
be  no  'me'  and  no  'you'  for  things  to  appear  to,  nor  any  meaning 
to  the  word  'appear.'  There  would  exist  nothing  but  a  stew  and 
welter  of  contradictions.  In  short,  it  is  futile  for  panhylism  to 
deny  the  reality  of  the  psychical  and  to  treat  consciousness  either 
with  Huxley  and  Haeckel  as  an  epiphenomenal  shadow  of  physio- 
logical processes  or  with  Hume  as  a  mere  possibility  of  relativistic 
and  mutually  incompatible  fields  of  presentation. 

A  recent  and  very  piquant  form  of  monistic  panhylism  is  the 

JI  regard  the  acute  criticisms  advanced  by  Professor  A.  O.  Lovejoy  (J.  of  Phil., 
Psychol.,  etc.,  8,  589,  seq.)  as  perfectly  valid  insofar  as  they  bear  against  the 
theory,  apparently  held  by  certain  English  realists,  that  hallucinatory  objects  exist 
in  the  spatio-temporal  system.  So  far  as  I  can  see  the  only  way  to  escape  (with- 
out falling  into  either  epistemological  dualism  or  subjectivism)  the  '  ultra-realism ' 
or  'monistic  panhylism'  which  Lovejoy  attributes  to  the  New  Realists,  and  which 
I  have  been  attacking,  ia  to  adopt  the  theory  of  the  genesis  of  error  and  the  non- 
existent though  objective  subsistence  of  its  objects,  set  forth  in  the  third  division  of 
this  study  under  the  title  of  the  Epistemological  Triangle. 


OBJECTIONS  TO  PANHYLISM  271 

identification  of  consciousness  with  behavior.1  The  study  of  animal 
psychology  has  shown  the  uselessness  of  trying  to  guess  what  may 
be  in  an  animal's  consciousness,  and  the  importance  of  concen- 
trating on  the  study  of  the  animal's  behavior,  which  is  something 
actually  observable.  Moreover,  the  students  of  human  psy- 
chology have  come  to  an  increased  realization  of  the  importance 
of  studying  the  behavior  of  man,  not  merely  as  a  means  of  in- 
ferring what  he  is  conscious  of,  but  as  something  in  itself  pro- 
foundly significant  of  his  real  nature  and  character.  A  study  of 
purely  objective  behavior  does  indeed  in  many  cases  afford  a 
better  insight  into  the  nature  of  human  faculty  and  the  means 
of  controlling  and  training  it  than  could  be  yielded  by  any  amount 
of  mere  introspection.  Not  content  with  developing  this  new 
and  splendid  branch  of  psychological  inquiry  as  coordinate  with 
the  study  of  consciousness,  there  have  been  some  investigators 
who,  like  Professor  Singer,  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  so  carried 
away  with  enthusiasm  for  it  that  they  have  proposed  actually 
to  identify  consciousness  itself  with  behavior.  Against  this  latest 
form  of  monistic  panhylism  the  following  objections  seem  to  me 
to  hold  valid :  (1)  Behavior  is  only  one  of  many  purely  objective 
processes.  We  can  be  conscious  of  behavior  as  of  anything  else. 
But  if  behavior  is  itself  consciousness,  there  seems  nothing  left 
in  terms  of  which  we  can  define  the  consciousness  of  behavior. 
In  short,  we  have  here  the  same  sort  of  difficulty  that  confronts 
the  crude  materialist  who  would  identify  consciousness  with 
motion.  Motion  has  an  actual  qualitative  nature  of  its  own, 
which  is  obviously  different  from  the  nature  of  consciousness. 
(2)  Behavior  is  always  a  movement  or  chain  of  movements  in 
space  either  of  the  organism  as  a  whole  or  of  something  in  the 
organism,  such  as  a  neural  current.  As  such  it  could  at  best  only 
be  correlated  with  the  consciousness  of  bodily  movements,  and 
with  what  entered  into  them  as  their  constituents.  Now  the 
square  root  of  minus  one  is  not  a  bodily  movement  nor  does  it 

1  (Cf.  the  paper  entitled  Mind  as  an  Observable  Object,  by  Professor  E.  A. 
Singer,  Jr.,  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  8,  180,  seq.) 


272     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

enter  into  such  movement  in  any  intelligible  sense.  I  cannot  move 
towards  it  or  away  from  it.  And  the  same  is  true  of  past  events. 
I  do  not  see  in  what  sense  my  consciousness  of  such  things  as  the 
life  of  Julius  Caesar  can  be  identified  with  any  specific  behavior 
or  movement  of  my  body.  (3)  All  that  is  visible  or  profitably 
observable  as  behavior  relates  to  movements  with  which  it  is 
physiologically  impossible  for  consciousness  to  be  identified  or 
even  directly  correlated.  For  physiology  teaches  us  that  con- 
sciousness depends  upon,  or  is  immediately  and  directly  bound 
up  with,  neural  currents  which  are  always  intra-organic,  if  not 
intra-cortical.  Now  what  we  observe  as  behavior  in  a  man,  a  bird, 
or  a  rat,  is  never  the  flow  of  neural  currents,  but  only  the  gross 
movements  of  the  body  and  its  members.  These  latter  can  by  no 
possibility  be  the  physical  correlates  of  the  consciousness  involved. 
Still  less  can  they  be  identical  with  it.  (4)  Finally,  consciousness 
does  at  each  moment  of  a  train  of  conscious  behavior  have  for 
its  contents  past  incidents  of  the  behavior  that  are  no  longer  and 
future  incidents  that  are  not  yet.  But  it  is  obvious  that  with 
respect  to  the  behavior  itself  all  its  incidents  are  successive  and 
so  outside  one  another  in  time,  the  past  and  the  future  never  be- 
ing present  together.  Let  us  note  finally  that  most  of  these  ar- 
guments against  identifying  consciousness  with  behavior  would 
apply  with  equal  force  against  any  attempt  to  define  conscious- 
ness in  terms  of  a  physical  movement,  reaction,  relation,  or  any 
objective  process  whatsoever. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  opposite  theory  of  the  relation  of  con- 
sciousness to  the  world  of  objects  —  the  theory  of  panpsychism.1 
The  panpsychist  might  be  defined  as  an  idealist  with  a  scientist's 
conscience.  He  begins  by  recognizing  the  spatio-temporal  order 
of  physical  events.  He  takes  particular  account  of  the  facts  of 
physiology.  He  observes  that  wherever  and  whenever  certain 

1  Panpsychism  really  connotes  two  distinct  theories  :  (1)  the  positive  view  that 
all  matter  has  something  psychical  about  it;  (2)  the  negative  view  that  all  matter 
is  nothing  but  psychical.  With  the  first  of  these  views  I  am  in  entire  sympathy. 
It  is  only  against  the  second  or  negative  doctrine  that  I  shall  argue. 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AS  BEHAVIOR  273 

types  of  brain  processes  occur  there  is  reported  a  consciousness 
of  events  other  than  those  brain  processes.  His  own  brain  he 
cannot  observe,  but  his  own  consciousness  he  knows,  and  this 
leads  him  to  his  great  discovery,  that  the  actual  or  'in  itself 
reality  of  the  brain  process  is  the  consciousness  associated  with  it. 
But  if  there  is  nothing  except  what  is  mental,  why  does  everything 
appear  as  physical?  In  short,  why  should  the  mind  have  a  body 
if  there  is  no  body  for  it  to  have  ?  To  this  question  he  answers  by 
saying  that  minds  appear  to  one  another  as  material ;  that  matter 
is  the  form  a  mind  takes  when  perceived  externally  by  another 
mind.  My  brain  exists  as  such  only  as  a  state  of  your  mind, 
your  brain  exists  as  such  only  as  a  state  of  my  mind.  I  will  not 
consider  in  detail  the  various  forms  which  this  doctrine  has  taken. 
Leibniz,  Schopenhauer,  Clifford,  Paulsen,  Dr.  Morton  Prince, 
Professor  C.  A.  Strong  and,  just  recently,  Dr.  Durant  Drake, 
have  all  presented  theories  which  are  essentially  panpsychistic 
in  that  they  treat  every  material  element  of  the  world  as  in 
itself  mental,  their  materiality  being  nothing  actual,  but  only 
the  guise  or  disguise  in  which  they  appear  to  one  another.  Pro- 
fessor C.  A.  Strong  has  presented  the  view  most  plausibly  in  his 
book,  "Why  the  Mind  Has  a  Body";  and  so  far  as  I  know,  he 
is  the  only  member  of  the  school  who  recognizes  the  obligation  to 
answer  the  question  why  in  a  world  in  which  nothing  is  material 
everything  should  appear  as  material.1 

I  shall  note  briefly  what  appear  to  me  to  be  the  three  principal 
objections  to  panpsychism. 

(1)  The  view  offers  no  explanation  of  one  mind's  consciousness 
of  another  mind  as  such.  If  every  mind  has  to  appear  to  another 
mind  under  the  form  of  matter,  how  happens  it  that  we  all  of 
us,  and  notably  the  pansychists,  can  think  of,  believe  in,  and  talk 
about  other  minds  as  minds  ? 

1  Despite  the  fact  that  this  question,  picturesquely  formulated,  makes  the  title 
of  Professor  Strong's  book,  it  is  not  in  the  book  itself  but  in  a  paper  published 
later  that  we  should  look  to  find  his  answer.  Cf.  Archives  de  Psychologic,  Nov.  1904. 
And  for  my  criticism  of  the  argument  there  presented,  cf .  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  a, 

626. 

T 


274     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

(2)  The  view  discriminates  arbitrarily  between  the  forms  and 
qualities  of  the  physical  world.     It  denies  the  reality  external 
to  the  knowing  mind  of  the  colors,  sounds,  densities,  and  shapes 
of  the  objects  known,  but  it  admits  the  independent  and  ex- 
ternal reality  of  the  space-characters  of  position  and  distance. 
Its  elements  of  mind-stuff  exist  and  operate  not  only  in  time  but 
in  a  three-dimensional  medium   identifiable   with   the  space  of 
material  objects.     Why  should  the  panpsychist  reduce  known 
matter  and  its  qualities  to  the  idealistic  status  of  mere  sensations 
of  the  knower,  and  yet  allow  the  spatial  and  temporal  proper- 
ties fundamentally  constitutive  of  that  matter  to  go  scot  free  and 
maintain  a  realistic  status  of  independence  of  the  knower  ? 

(3)  Panpsychism  is  what  Spaulding  calls  a '  self -refuting  system,' 
in  that  its  conclusions  contradict  the  premises  from  which  they 
are  derived.    For  the  panpj^schist  at  the  beginning  of  his  ar- 
gument takes  his  stand  firmly  on  the  facts  of  physics  and  physi- 
ology, thereby  proudly  differentiating  himself  from  the  ordinary 
idealist.    By  appealing  to  these  facts  he  demonstrates  that  the  ob- 
jects of  which  we  are  conscious  and  which  seem  to  be  real  exter- 
nally to  us  and  independent  of  our  knowing  them,  do  in  some  sense 
vary  concomitantly  and  immediately  with  our  cerebral  processes. 
They  are,  in  short,  only  perceived  by  virtue  of  the  ether  and  air 
vibrations  which  they  project  upon  the  organism  and  which  in  their 
turn  produce  nerve  currents  in  the  brain.     On  the  basis  of  this  he 
asks  us  to  admit  that  the  objects  immediately  known  are  not  really 
external,   but  internal  —  identical   with   the   cerebral   processes 
of  the  knower.    Very  reluctantly  and  with  a  sense  of  bewilder- 
ment we  may  consent  to  admit  this,  violating  our  common  sense 
out  of  our  respect  for  the  physical  and  physiological  evidence  which  he 
has  adduced.     Then  of  a  sudden  the  panpsychist  makes  a  complete 
volte  face  and  cooly  informs  us  that  the  ether  and  air  vibrations 
and  the  brain  and  its  currents  do  not  exist  in  themselves  at  all, 
but  are  mere  appearances  in  consciousness.     My  brain,  in  which 
I  have  just  consented  to  locate  my  entire  objective  world,  turns 
out  to  be  merely  a  group   of  actual  or   possible  sensations  in 


OBJECTIONS  TO  PANPSYCKISM  275 

your  mind.  Now  it  is  bad  enough  to  have  to  locate  my  world  of 
objects  in  my  brain  considered  as  a  thing  actually  existing  and 
receiving  effects ;  but  it  becomes  preposterous  to  ask  me  to  lo- 
cate that  world  of  my  objects  in  what  turns  out  to  be  not  my  own 
brain  at  all  but  another  person's  state  of  mind.  What  shall  it 
profit  a  man  to  lose  the  whole  world  if  he  cannot  gain,  or  retain, 
even  his  own  brain,  —  the  one  reality  for  the  sake  of  which  he  had 
made  the  sacrifice?  Moreover,  the  whole  physical  and  physio- 
logical mechanism,  on  the  validity  of  which  the  panpsychist  ar- 
gument was  based,  assumes  a  most  anomalous  position  when  once 
the  panpsychist  conclusion  is  attained.  For  in  place  of  a  world 
of  bodies  sending  forth  vibrations  to  one  another,  we  must  now 
assume  a  world  of  naked  consciousnesses  which  interact  in  an 
utterly  incomprehensible  telepathic  manner,  the  resulting  content 
of  each  being  the  unreal  appearances  of  the  others.  The  best 
possible  status  that  we  could  accord  to  physical  processes  in 
such  a  world  would  be  to  describe  them  either  as  permanent 
possibilities  of  sensation  or  as  the  epiphenomenal  or  shadow  ac- 
companiments of  mysterious  psychical  interactions.  Yet,  once 
more,  it  was  only  by  assuming  that  these  same  permanent  possi- 
bilities or  epiphenomenal  shadows  were  not  mere  possibilities  or 
shadows  at  all,  but  a  real  material  world,  that  the  argument 
could  get  under  way.  I  do  not  wish  to  offend,  but  the  whole 
procedure  of.  the  panpsychist  in  invoking  physiological  facts  to 
prove  the  unreality  of  the  physical  is  comparable  to  that  of  the 
man  who  climbs  upon  the  shoulders  of  a  friend  only  in  order  that 
he  may  stamp  upon  his  head. 

Panhylism  and  panpsychism  have  proved  themselves  equally 
futile  in  that  they  each  degrade  one  aspect  of  things  to  a  mere  possi- 
bility or  shadow  of  the  other.  Yet,  they  are,  after  all,  honest  at- 
tempts to  explain  the  known  in  terms  of  the  known ;  and  bad  as 
they  are  they  are  far  better  than  the  dualism  and  agnostic 
monism  which  are  their  only  rivals.  An  agnostic  monism  which 
defines  the  physical  and  psychical  as  the  miraculously  parallel 
attributes  or  manifestation  of  a  substance  or  power  whose  nature 


276     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

is  otherwise  indefinable,  solves  no  problems,  either  scientific  or 
metaphysical.  What  the  substance  is,  why  it  is  manifested  as 
^  other  than  what  it  is,  and  how  its  attributes  are  related  as  they 
are  —  to  these  questions  it  makes  no  answer.  To  explain  the  two 
realities  that  we  partly  know,  it  asks  us  to  postulate  a  thing  of 
which  we  can  know  nothing.  As  for  a  dualism  of  the  ordinary  kind 
which  regards  the  world  as  made  up  of  two  ultimately  separate 
and  perfectly  heterogeneous  entities,  —  objects  and  conscious- 
ness—  it  not  only  offers  no  explanation  of  their  interaction, 
but  by  its  very  terms  it  makes  of  such  interaction  something  that 
is  miraculous,  if  not  impossible. 

4.  A  Supplementary  Antinomy  of  Consciousness.  Are  perceived 
Objects  inside  or  outside  the  Brain?  —  The  world  in  which  we 
began  our  quest  for  consciousness,  was  a  world  which  contained 
nothing  but  events  or  quality-groups  partly  similar  and  partly 
different,  each  group  occupying  its  own  spatio-temporal  position 
and  related  spatio-temporally  to  other  groups  continuous  or 
discontinuous  with  it.  The  objects  of  this  world  were  all  as 
external  to  one  another  as  are  the  points  in  space  and  the 
moments  hi  time.  Now  what  we  denote  as  consciousness  is 
prima  facie  repugnant  to  such  a  system  precisely  because  what- 
ever else  consciousness  may  be  it  is  the  condition  by  which  ob- 
jects at  a  distance  from  one  another  in  space  or  time  or  both 
may  be  in  some  sense  'present  to'  or  'in'  or  'together  with'  one 
another.  To  illustrate,  I  here  and  now  am  'perceptually'  or 
'immediately'  conscious  of  a  noise  that  occurred  two  or  three  sec- 
onds ago,  and  of  a  color  two  or  three  feet  away ;  and  I  am  '  concep- 
tually' or  'mediately'  conscious  of  Julius  Caesar  in  ancient 
Rome  and  of  the  baby  Emperor  in  Pekin.  And  here  I  wish  (by 
way  of  taking  account  of  a  supplementary  antinomy  of  conscious- 
ness) to  call  attention  to  four  factors  in  this  situation,  two  of 
which  make  it  necessary  to  regard  these  apprehended  objects  as 
in  me  here  and  now,  and  two  which  make  it  necessary  to  regard 
them  as  outside  of  me  here  and  now. 

(1)  The  objects  of  which  I  am  conscious  are  in  some  sense  di- 


PANHYLISM  AND  PANSYCHISM  277 

rectly  effecting  changes  in  me.  They  produce  feelings  of  doubt  as 
to  their  appropriateness  as  illustrations ;  they  make  me  perceive 
and  think  of  other  objects  more  or  less  related  to  them  which  would 
scarcely  have  come  to  me  except  for  them;  they  influence  the 
particular  movements  of  my  hand  as  I  write  of  them. 

(2)  I  have  every  reason  to  believe  both  from  my  experience  of 
dreams  and  imaginings,  and  also  from  what  I  learn  from  physio- 
logical psychology  that  '  what  objects '  I  shall  perceive  or  conceive 
depends  primarily  and  directly  not  upon  the  existence  and  activity 
of  those  objects,  but  rather  upon  the  existence  and  activity  of  my 
brain.  If  the  skull  could  be  laid  open  and  if  by  artificial  stimula- 
tion there  could  be  produced  in  the  brain  and  nervous  system 
the  same  processes  —  periodic  waves,  vibrations,  stresses,  or  what 
not  —  that  are  ordinarily  produced  by  the  energies  that  proceed 
from  extra-organic  objects,  then  those  objects  would  be  appre- 
hended quite  irrespective  of  whether  they  existed  or  not.  For 
these  two  reasons  it  would  certainly  seem  as  though  the  things 
of  which  I  am  conscious,  but  which  appear  as  being  at  other 
times  and  places,  are  nevertheless  in  me  or  in  my  nervous 
system  here  and  now.  Yet  (3)  the  things  of  which  I  am  aware  — 
such  things  at  least  as  I  have  chosen  for  the  illustration  —  cannot 
be  within  my  brain  because  their  immediate  and  incontrovertible 
intent  is  otherwise.  A  color  two  or  three  feet  away  from  my  or- 
ganism is  not  in  my  organism.  The  occurrence  of  a  noise  two 
or  three  moments  ago  is  not  the  occurrence  of  anything  now  at 
this  moment.  The  emperors  of  Rome  and  of  China  are  not  ner- 
vous processes  of  a  person  in  New  York.  To  regard  the  things 
as  inside  me,  which  by  definition  are  outside  of  me,  would  be  flatly 
self-contradictory.  (4)  Moreover,  all  this  aside,  there  is  a  second 
reason  that  makes  it  impossible  to  identify  the  things  known  with 
the  processes  occurring  here  and  now  by  virtue  of  which  I  know 
them.  If  you  could  look  into  my  brain  and  see  (and  hear  and 
touch)  everything  that  was  actually  there  at  a  given  moment, 
you  could  not  find  there  the  things  mentioned  of  which  I  was  aware 
at  that  moment.  You  might  find,  and,  indeed,  I  believe  you 


278     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

would  find,  visual  and  auditory  simulacra  of  the  things  known, 
'specifically  qualified  energies'  streaming  through  the  sensory 
central  and  motor  paths  of  the  nervous  system  which  would  re- 
semble more  or  less  closely  (according  to  the  transparent  or  dis- 
torting properties  of  the  media  through  which  they  had  passed) 
the  specific  qualities  of  the  extra-organic  objects  from  which  they 
proceeded.1  But  these  cerebral  effects,  however  closely  they  might 
resemble  the  objects  known,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  are 
in  some  cases  the  effects  of  those  objects,  and  in  all  cases  the  im- 
mediate determinants  of  our  knowing  them,  could  not  possibly 
be  the  known  objects  themselves.  If  this  followed  from  nothing 
else  it  would  follow  from  the  fact  that  the  parts  of  space  and  time 
are  mutually  exclusive  or  external,  and  that  the  objects  perceived 
occupy  spaces  and  times  other  than  the  spaces  and  times  of  the 
brain  process  by  which  they  are  perceived.  Here  is  certainly 
a  strange  dilemma.  Two  factors  in  the  situation  seem  to  make  it 
necessary  to  regard  the  field  of  consciousness  as  'in'  the  brain 
and  two  other  factors  seem  to  make  it  necessary  to  regard  that 
field  as  not  in  the  brain. 

5.  Consciousness  and  Causality.  Hylopsychism  as  the  Recipro- 
cal Solution  of  the  Antinomies.  —  In  perplexity  one  naturally  casts 
about  for  analogies.  Is  there  anything  other  than  consciousness 
that  exemplifies  the  paradox  of  events  in  one  space  and  time 
being  somehow  in  another  space  and  tune?  Yes.  There  is  the 
case  of  the  causality  relation.  In  considering  that  we  found 
ourselves  confronted  with  the  same  absurd  situation  in  which 
an  event  in  one  place  and  time  seemed  to  belong  to  or  be  de- 
termined by  a  different  event  in  another  place  and  time. 
There  were,  we  may  remember,  two  ways  of  viewing  this  causal- 
ity parad6x :  first  the  way  of  the  substantist  who  insisted  that 
the  self-transcending  implications  or  potentialities  of  events 

1  The  evidence  adduced  by  Holt  in  his  criticism  of  the  doctrine  of  specific  energies 
would  seem  to  show  that  that  very  essential  property  of  stimuli  —  their  periodicity 
—  suffers  little  or  no  change  in  the  passage  from  the  merely  physical  to  the  physio- 
logical medium.  Cf.  infra,  325  ff. 


ARE  OBJECTS  INSIDE  THE  BRAIN?  279 

were  actually  real  in  themselves  over  and  above  their  specific 
natures,  and  second  the  way  of  the  positivist  who  insisted  that 
these  potentialities  were  mere  potentialities,  nothing  actually  real 
in  themselves,  but  only  our  expectations  that  events  would  hap- 
pen in  the  future  as  they  had  in  the  past.  When  the  substan- 
tist  was  asked  to  tell  what  the  potentiality  actually  was  he 
could  give  no  answer,  and  when  the  positivist  was  asked  to 
explain  how  a  mere  potentiality  or  subjective  expectation  could 
explain  nature's  routines  and  uniformities  which  in  a  system 
devoid  of  real  causality  and  implication  would  be  infinitely  im- 
probable, he  could  give  no  answer.  And,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  quarrel  between  the  panhylist  and  the  panpsychist  is  as 
interminable  as  that  between  the  positivist  and  the  substantist. 
The  only  essential  difference  between  the  two  quarrels  would 
seem  to  be  that  substantist  and  positivist  refuted  one  another, 
whereas  panhylism  and  panpsychism  seemed  capable  only  of 
refuting  themselves.  The  truth  is  that  the  attempt  to  find  a 
place  for  causality  in  a  world  of  pure  facts  leads  to  one  kind  of 
antinomy  and  the  attempt  to  find  a  place  for  consciousness  in  that 
world  leads  to  another.  The  last  chance  of  attacking  the  prob- 
lem successfully  would  seem  to  lie  in  the  possibility  that  these 
antinomies  if  matched  against  each  other  might,  like  the  two 
equally  unintelligible  halves  of  a  picture  puzzle,  dovetail  together 
and  reveal  a  clear  and  harmonious  whole.  Let  us  try  this.  The  «c 
substantist  declared  that  a  cause-effect  implication  resided  in 
each  event,  but  the  positivist  has  shown  that  such  potentiality 
could  not  be  any  new  kind  of  quality.  Suppose  that  this  cause- 
effect  potentiality,  which  from  the  objective  point  of  view  can  only 
be  defined  indirectly  as  a  possibility  of  other  events,  were  in  itself 
and  actually  the  CONSCIOUSNESS  of  those  other  events.  Then  causal 
potentiality  would  have  been  made  actual  or  real  as  the  substan- 
tist has  proved  it  must  be,  while  the  positivist  could  still  main- 
tain that  this  potentiality  was  not  any  new  and  illegitimate  type 
of  object.  The  essential  claim  of  each  party  to  the  quarrel  would 
have  been  vindicated,  but  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  conflict  with 


280     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

the  claim  of  the  other.  As  to  the  second  quarrel  —  that  between 
the  panhylist  and  panpsychist  —  an  equally  satisfactory  result 
would  have  been  reached.  The  panhylist  could  still  maintain 
that  consciousness  could  be  defined  as  the  possibility  of  the  objects 
constituting  its  field  and  that  as  such  it  was  not  another  real  ob- 
ject existing  along  with  the  objects  revealed  by  it  —  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  panpsychist  could  claim  that  consciousness  was 
so  fundamentally  and  immediately  real  that  objects  themselves 
could  be  defined  as  permanent  possibilities  of  perception.  In 
short,  the  positive  claims  of  each  party  would  have  been  satisfied, 
and  only  the  negative  claims,  which  alone  had  brought  about  the 
conflict,  would  have  been  rejected.  Thus,  the  panhylist  could  no 
longer  say  that  consciousness  was  nothing  but  the  possibility  of 
objects  or  nothing  but  an  epiphenomenal  correlate  of  the  brain 
process,  for  consciousness  would  have  been  made  actually  real 
though  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  duplicate  or  interfere  with  the  con- 
tinuity of  physiological  processes.  And  the  panpsychist,  for  his 
part,  could  no  longer  say  that  physical  objects  were  nothing  but 
appearances  in  consciousness,  for  a  way  would  have  been  found 
for  the  physical  to  appear  in  consciousness  without  prejudice  to 
its  intrinsic  reality  as  physical.  Finally,  as  for  the  'supple- 
mentary antinomy'  which  turned  on  the  reasons  for  and  against 
locating  the  objects  of  which  we  are  conscious  in  the  brain  processes 
which  determine  that  consciousness,  the  matter  would  have  been 
cleared  up  in  a  manner  equally  satisfactory.  fFor  we  can  say  that 
with  respect  to  their  actual  objective  or  physical  being  the  events 
that  compose  the  world  are  as  external  to  one  another  as  the 
spaces  and  times  which  they  occupy,  and  in  particular  that  the 
events  known  are  outside  the  brain  events  by  which  they  are  known ; 
while  with  respect  to  their  potential,  subjective  or  psychical 
being  the  events  that  compose  the  world  are,  in  so  far  as  they  are 
all  causally  related,  internal  to  one  another  in  the  sense  that  any 
or  all  might  be  present  in  each,  and  that  in  particular  the  events 
known  are  'inside'  the  brain  events  that  know  them,  though 
only  as  the  latter's  potentialities  or  implications.  In  short,  the 


WHAT  CONSCIOUSNESS  IS  281 

relation  between  the  brain-event  and  the  object  it  knows  would 
be  analogous  to  the  relation  of  a  word  and  its  meaning.  The 
meaning  is  'in'  the  word  and  yet  the  thing  meant  may  be  some- 
thing wholly  outside  of  and  different  from  the  word./ 
\  This  is,  I  believe,  the  true  theory  of  the  nature  of  consciousness 
and  of  its  relation  to  the  objective  world  which  it  reveals  and  in 
which  it  abides,  and  because  I  believe  so  firmly  in  the  truth  of  the 
theory  I  wish  to  give  it  a  name  that  will  both  distinguish  it  from 
other  solutions  of  the  same  problem  and  also  show  its  peculiar 
relation  to  those  solutions.  I  will  call  it  "  Hylopsychism "  after 
the  analogy  of  hylozoism  —  to  indicate  the  especial  synthesis 
which  it  purports  to  effect  between  a  hylistic  or  materialistic 
account  of  things  and  a  psychistic  or  (ontologically)  idealistic 
account.  By  hylopsychism  then,  I  mean  the  theory  that  —  The 
potentiality  of  the  physical  is  the  actuality  of  the  psychical  and  the 
potentiality  of  the  psychical  is  the  actuality  of  the  physical.  Or,  to 
put  it  in  the  form  of  a  definition  of  consciousness :  Consciousness 
is  the  potential  or  implicative  presence  of  a  thing  at  a  space  or  time 
in  which  that  thing  is  not  actually  present.  That  there  is  much  in 
this  formulation  that  is  in  need  of  further  elucidation  and  proof 
I  am,  of  course,  keenly  aware.  And  there  are  several  rather  pal- 
pable objections  that  must  be  considered.  The  arguments  thus 
far  advanced  have  been  mainly  indirect  —  attempts  to  prove 
what  consciousness  is  by  eliminating  the  various  things  which 
it  is  not.  That  this  indirect  evidence  needs  to  be  supplemented 
by  evidence  that  is  direct,  I  admit,  and  I  believe  there  is  an  as- 
tonishing amount  of  such  evidence  to  be  found  by  any  one  who  is 
willing  to  look  for  it.  Some  small  part  of  it  I  shall  try  to  bring  out 
in  what  follows. 

6.  The  Three  'Directions'  of  a  Potentiality.  —  Each  event  is  (1) 
an  effect  of  earlier  events,  (2)  a  cause  of  later  events,  (3)  in  recip- 
rocal interaction  with  the  contemporaneous  events  externally 
continuous  with  it  in  tri-dimensional  space,  which  means  that 
each  event  faces  in  three  ways  —  backward  into  the  past,  for- 
ward into  the  future,  and  outward  into  space.  If  we  were  right 


282     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

in  identifying  consciousness  with  the  cause-effect  potentiality 
or  self-transcending  implication  functionally  resident  in  events, 
then  we  should  expect  to  find  the  above-mentioned  triplicity  of 
direction  instanced  in  consciousness;  and  of  course  that  is  just 
what  we  do  find  hi  what  are  called  memory,  expectation,  and  ex- 
ternal perception.  Consciousness  does  at  each  indivisible  instant 
of  its  existence  possess  in  greater  or  less  degree  a  retrospect  of  the 
past,  a  prospect  of  the  future,  and  a  perspective  view  of  external 
presence. 

7.  A  Certain  Difficulty  in  Terminology.  —  The  foregoing  analysis 
seems  to  afford  a  suitable  opportunity  to  explain  a  certain  loose- 
ness or  ambiguity  which  the  reader  may  have  noticed  in  my  use 
of  the  words  ' implication '  and  'potentiality.'  I  have  used  these 
words  as  though  they  were  synonyms,  gliding  unscrupulously 
from  one  to  the  other  as  best  suited  my  purpose.  But  this  is,  I 
believe,  more  the  fault  of  the  terminology  at  my  disposal  than 
of  the  thought  itself.  The  fact  is,  'potentiality'  expresses  one 
aspect  of  my  meaning  and  implication  the  other,  and  each  is  by 
itself  inadequate.  There  is  no  one  recognized  word  for  the  three- 
fold self-transcendent  reference  of  events  to  their  causes,  effects, 
and  interacting  contemporaries.  The  word  'reference'  is  itself 
defective  in  that  it  seems  to  beg  the  notion  of  consciousness 
which  I  am  trying  to  define.  'Potentiality'  is  bad  because  it 
is  too  narrow,  meaning  primarily  simply  the  reference  of  a  cause 
to  its  future  effect,  and  never,  or  hardly  ever,  the  equally  self- 
transcending  reference  of  effects  to  their  causes.  The  word 
'implication'  suffers  from  the  opposite  defect  to  that  of  'poten- 
tiality,' being  too  broad.  It  can  be  used  equally  well  to  desig- 
nate the  reference  of  an  event  to  its  cause  and  to  its  effect,  but 
it  is  also  used  to  designate  the  apprehended  references  of  objects 
to  one  another  in  a  field  of  consciousness,  and  again  to  designate 
the  relation  of  the  premises  of  an  argument  to  its  conclusion. 
Now,  needless  to  say,  I  do  not  mean  to  identify  consciousness 
with  implication  in  either  of  these  latter  senses.  A  glass  of  water 
can  suggest  to  me  the  quenching  of  my  thirst,  without  being 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  POTENTIALITY          283 

itself  conscious  of  the  use  that  I  can  put  it  to;  and  the  major 
and  minor  premises  are  as  little  conscious  of  the  conclusion  they 
imply.  In  these  cases  the  implicative  relation  holds  between 
complexes  of  events  and  not  between  the  simple  events  themselves. 
Water  only  implies  thirst-quenching  extrinsically  as  part  of  a 
complex  composed  of  instincts  and  memories;  and  again,  the 
premise  or  premises  only  imply  their  conclusion  in  virtue  of  their 
membership  in  complexes  that  are  more  or  less  elaborate.  These 
logical  implications  of  inference  always  obtain  between  relations, 
aspects  or  complexes  of  event-elements  and  not  concretely  intrin- 
sically and  synthetically  between  the  simple  events  themselves. 
Because  of  these  terminological  difficulties  I  must  ask  the  favor 
of  being  allowed  to  continue  to  use  (as  an  equivalent  of  the  cogni- 
tive function)  the  word  'implication'  in  the  artificially  narrow 
sense  in  which  it  applies  to  the  cause-effect  relation,  and  the  word 
'potentiality'  in  an  artificially  broadened  sense  to  denote  the  back- 
ward reference  of  an  event  to  its  cause  as  well  as  the  forward 
reference  of  a  cause  to  its  effects. 

8.  The  Three  Levels  of  Potentiality.  —  Hylozoism  is  the  theory 
that  all  matter  is  instinct  with  life.  By  hylopsychism  I  wish 
to  denote  the  theory  that  all  matter  is  instinct  with  something 
of  the  cognitive  function;  that  every  objective  event  has  that 
self-transcending  implication  of  other  events  which  when  it 
occurs  on  the  scale  that  it  does  in  our  brain  processes  we  call 
consciousness.  Now  the  reader  will  naturally  take  fright  at 
the  idea  of  postulating  anything  like  a  human  consciousness  in 
the  movements  of  dead  matter.  And  I  hasten  to  say  that 
the  theory  that  I  am  advocating  will  in  no  way  obliterate  the 
pragmatic  differences  between  the  mechanical,  the  physiological, 
and  the  mental.  Science  has  fought  hard  and  long  to  free  her 
explanations  from  the  incubus  of  teleology  and  to  gain  the  right 
to  treat  nature  as  a  spatio-temporal  mechanism ;  and  there  would 
be  a  strong  presumption  against  any  theory  which  would  con- 
flict with  the  depersonalized  austerities  of  physical  law.  And 
yet  along  with  the  conquering  advance  of  the  mechanistic  idea 


284     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

has  come  an  increasing  sense  of  the  continuity  of  all  natural  pro- 
cesses—  from  the  blind  movements  of  an  atom  to  the  far-seeing 
actions  of  man.  Our  enterprise  must  be  to  find  a  place  for  teleology 
in  nature,  not  as  a  substitute  for  spatio-temporal  change,  but  ra- 
ther as  a  special  and  higher  type  of  such  change. 

There  are  in  nature  at  least  three  fundamentally  distinct  types 
of  causal  process,  the  mechanical,  the  vital,  and  the  sensory.  In 
the  mechanical  process,  the  dominant  characteristic  is  spatio- 
temporal  change.  The  position  of  a  body  at  a  given  moment 
implies  and  is  implied  by  its  own  or  another  body's  position  at 
another  moment,  and  its  'consciousness'  would  be  -of  that  and 
only  that.  It  would  have  a  purely  spatio-temporal  content.  In 
the  vital  process,  however,  the  dominant  characteristic  is  change 
of  organic  form  and  chemical  pattern  rather  than  mere  change 
of  place.  A  living  organism  at  each  moment  of  its  life  contains 
as  its  potentiality  or  implication  organic  forms  that  it  has  had 
and  will  have,  together  with  the  potentiality  or  capacity  of  as- 
similating or  adapting  to  the  chemical  pattern  of  its  own  tissues 
the  appropriate  matter  which  as  food  may  come  within  its  system. 
Its  potentiality  expresses  itself  in  inheriting,  developing,  and 
assimilating;  and  its  'consciousness*  would  have  for  its  content 
organic  forms  or  chemical  patterns  which  it  had  undergone  and 
was  about  to  undergo. 

In  the  sensory  process  which  constitutes  our  consciousness  the 
implications  are  neither  of  mere  notion  nor  of  inherited  metabo- 
lisms, but  of  specific  qualities  of  the  objects  outside  our  organism 
and  causally  related  to  it.  That  is  to  say,  the  nervous  system  grows 
up  within  the  organism  as  an  apparatus  for  transmitting  energy- 
forms  from  one  part  of  the  organism  to  another  and  so  from  the 
things  outside  to  the  brain  inside.  Most  of  the  cerebral  energy 
thus  produced  is  continuously  passing  over  into  motor  currents 
initiating  behavior,  but  an  infinitesimal  part  is  dammed  up, 
or  stored  in  the  cortex.  The  continuous  currents  contain  the  im- 
mediate moment  to  moment  consciousness  of  sensations  and 
feelings,  while  the  part  that  is  stored  up  as  potential  energy  has 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  LIFE  285 

for  its  implications  at  each  moment  the  system  of  extra-organic 
objects  occupying  other  times  and  places ;  thus  it  is  the  principal 
function  of  the  brain  to  receive  and  retain  in  something  of  their 
separate  specificities  the  energies  that  have  come  from  distant 
objects;  and  it  is  the  self -transcending  implications  of  these 
brain-states  that  constitute  our  consciousness  of  the  spatio-tem- 
poral world  in  which  we  live. 

We  might,  indeed,  compare  the  sensory  mechanism  of  the  ner- 
vous system  with  the  merely  vital  mechanism  of  protoplasm  in 
general  somewhat  as  follows:  Protoplasm  is  an  apparatus  for 
ingesting,  digesting,  reproducing,  and  excreting  matter  and  the 
chemical  energies  associated  with  matter.  The  nervous  sys- 
tem, on  the  other  hand,  takes  its  energy  neat.  And  in  perceiving, 
remembering,  imagining,  and  reacting  it  is  respectively  ingesting, 
digesting,  reproducing,  and  excreting  those  free  energies  dissociated 
from  matter  which  in  the  form  of  vibrations  of  various  kinds  have  pro- 
ceeded from  distant  objects  through  the  sensory  channels  to  the  brain, 
where  they  constitute  by  their  implications  a  consciousness  of  those  ob- 
jects and  make  possible  an  intelligent  and  purposive  adjustment  to  an 
environment  [extending  in  time  and  space  immeasurably  beyond  the 
field  of  mere  chemical  and  mechanical  contacts.  All  this,  of  course, 
is  very  light  handling  of  important  and  intricate  matters.  But  it 
may  suffice  as  a  hint  of  how  the  theory  of  hylopsychism  could 
meet  the  criticism  that  by  its  identifying  consciousness  with 
causal  implication  it  had  unduly  minimised  the  differences  between 
mechanical,  vital,  and  rational  processes.  The  three  grades  of 
potentiality  .here  discussed  retain  all  their  characteristic  distinctions. 
We  have  neither  anthropomorphized  the  laws  of  physics  nor  re- 
duced to  a  blind  and  mechanical  process  the  activities  of  the 
human  spirit. 

9.  Summary.  —  The  main  purpose  of  this  second  division  of  our 
discussion  has  now  been  accomplished.  Our  definitions  of  truth  and 
error  as  the  consciousness  of  the  real  and  the  unreal  forced  upon  us 
an  ontological  excursus  or  metaphysical  inquiry  into  the  nature 
of  mind  and  its  relation  to  the  world  of  its  objects.  The  analysis 


286     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

of  the  existing  world  in  terms  of  space,  time,  and  quality  brought  us 
face -to  face  with  the  antinomies  of  causality  and  consciousness. 
As  a  joint  solution  of  the  two  seemingly  insoluble  problems  pre- 
sented by  those  antinomies  the  theory  of  hylopsychism  was  pro- 
pounded. The  last  sections  of  the  chapter  have  been  devoted 
to  an  exposition  and  defense  of  that  theory  and  to  a  brief  account 
of  its  bearing  on  the  psychophysical  and  the  biophysical  prob- 
lems. We  are  now  free  to  return  to  the  more  directly  epistemo- 
logical  question  of  the  nature  of  truth  and  error. 

Ill 

THE  GENESIS  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

1.  The  Epistemological  Triangle. — Physical  objects  send  forth 
waves  of  energy  in  various  directions  and  of  various  kinds,  but  all 
in  some  measure  characteristic  of  the  objects  from  which  they 
proceed.  These  energies  impinge  upon  the  organism,  and  the  sen- 
sory end-organs  and  the  nerve  fibers  then  transmit  to  the  brain  the 
kinds  of  energy  to  which  they  are  severally  adjusted  or  attuned. 
The  final  effect  is  the  resultant  of  these  sensory  energies  modified 
by  the  reaction  of  the  brain.  This  complex  cerebral  state  is  some- 
thing quite  physical  and  objective — as  much  so  as  the  extra-organic 
object  which  is  its  partial  cause.  It  is  a  natural  event  with  its  own 
qualities  and  its  own  position  in  the  space  and  time  order.  As 
such  it  possesses  the  threefold  self-transcending  implication  or 
cause-effect  potentiality  which  we  have  seen  to  be  the  property  of 
every  natural  event,  and  which  we  have  declared  to  constitute  in 
itself  that  event's  consciousness  of  other  events.  The  cerebral 
state,  whether  initiated  from  within  the  organism,  as  in  spontane- 
ous thought  and  in  hallucination,  or  whether  initiated  from  with- 
out as  in  perception,  will  be  conscious  of  such  objects  as  it  implies 
or  of  which  it  is  the  potentiality.  What  will  these  implicates 
or  objects  be?  My  answer  is  that  they  will  consist  of  the  events 
which  would  most  simply  have  caused  the  cerebral  state  and  of  the 


HOW  THE  BRAIN  DIGESTS   ENERGIES         287 

events  which  the  latter  would  produce  as  effects  if  it  acted  alone  and 
uninterfered  with.  Now  we  know  that  if  we  single  out  some  one 
event  and  inquire  as  to  its  cause,  that  we  shall  find  a  plurality 
of  possible  antecedents,  any  one  of  which  if  it  had  not  been  coun- 
teracted would  have  produced  it.  This  is  the  principle  of  "the 
plurality  of  causes."  It  follows  from  this  that  the  implicate,  or 
conscious  object  of  any  brain  state  may  be,  but  need  not  be,  an 
event  which  actually  exists.  When  the  implied  possible  cause 
actually  exists,  then  there  will  be  consciousness  of  a  reality  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  constitutes  true  knowledge  or  truth ;  when,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  cerebral  implicate  which  is  the  simplest  or  most 
natural  of  the  possible  causes  happens  not  to  have  been  the  actual 
cause,  or  happens  not  to  exist,  then  we  shall  have  apprehension 
of  what  is  unreal,  which  is  false  knowledge,  or  error.  The  brain 
event  is  the  'knower'  and  what  it  implies  is  the  'known.'  Perry1 
has  amply  shown  that  the  implied  is  not  dependent  on  the  implier, 
and  hence  the  fact  that  the  brain  event  implies  its  actual  or  possi- 
ble cause  as  the  object  in  consciousness  does  not  mean  that  the 
latter  in  any  way  depends  on  the  former.  Even  when  we  consider 
the  case  of  the  forward-facing,  or  prospective  implication,  the  ob- 
ject will  not  of  necessity  depend  upon  the  knowing  (or  expecting) 
it.  For  just  as  there  may  be  more  than  one  cause  capable  of  pro- 
ducing an  effect,  so  there  may  be  more  than  one  effect  produced 
by  a  given  cause.  And  because  an  earlier  event  is  the  poten- 
tiality of  a  later  event,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  will  inevitably 
produce  it.  This  statement,  however,  may  seem  to  require  some 
defense.  It  may  be  said  that  if  A  is  truly  a  cause  of  B  then  when- 
ever A  exists  B  must  exist.  Now,  of  course,  the  word  cause  can 
be  defined  to  mean  whatever  events  the  occurrence  of  which  univer- 
sally determine  the  existence  of  a  later  event  called  the  effect. 
And  this  is,  I  admit,  the  ordinary  conception  of  cause  in  philoso- 
phy. But  it  is  not  the  common  sense  conception  of  cause.  Ac- 
cording to  common  sense  the  cause  is  not  something  that  necessarily 
produces  its  effect,  but  only  something  that  tends  to  produce  its 

1  Cf.  supra,  112. 


288     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

effect.  The  fact  that  the  strict  or  philosophic  conception  of  cause 
does  not  allow  for  and  even  renders  impossible  and  meaningless 
the  notion  of  the  counteraction  of  a  cause  is  in  itself  sufficient  to 
decide  against  that  conception.  If  A  could  only  be  called  the 
cause  of  B  when  it  was  the  universal  antecedent  of  B,  then  it 
could  by  definition  never  be  counteracted.  And  yet,  we  often 
speak  of  a  cause  being  prevented  from  realizing  its  effect ;  and  I 
shall  therefore  accept  the  lesser  meaning  for  the  word  cause  as 
that  which  tends  to  produce  and  if  unhindered  would  produce  its 
effect.  Taking  the  matter  in  this  way  we  can  see  that  the  impli- 
cates or  objects  of  an  existing  brain-state,  whether  those  im- 
plicates are  its  causes,  its  effects,  or  the  contemporaneous  and 
reciprocal  combination  of  the  two,  do  not  themselves  certainly 
exist,  but  only  probably.  Or  to  state  the  same  truth  in  another 
way :  The  consciousness  that  an  event  has  happened  or  will  happen 
in  the  past  or  future  carries  with  it  not  the  certainty,  but  only  the 
probability  that  the  event  has  actually  happened  or  will  actually 
happen.  But  while  the  probable  truth  of  the  past  event  which 
we  are  conscious  of  as  having  occurred  is  not  in  any  sense  depend- 
ent upon  our  will,  yet  the  probability  of  the  actual  occurrence 
of  a  future  event  which  we  expect  does  often  depend  on  the  amount 
of  voluntary  effort  expended  by  ourselves  or  others.  That  is  to 
say,  a  potentiality  will  bring  about  its  own  future  actualization 
only  when  unimpeded.  If  there  are  other  rival  tendencies  at 
work,  it  will  be  necessary  to  counteract  them  by  use  of  the  will. 
Perhaps  I  can  best  sum  up  this  account  of  the  genesis  of  the 
consciousness  of  real  and  unreal  objects  by  symbolizing  the  three 
elements  involved.  We  have  (1)  the  actually  existing  external 
object  which  I  will  call  Oe;  (2)  the  cerebral  state  itself  which 
may  be  denoted  Oc;  (3)  the  object  perceived  or  apprehended, 
Op.  In  the  simplest  case,  Oe  will  be  the  cause  of  Oc  and  in 
every  case  Op  will  be  the  implicate  of  Oc.  These  are  the  three 
corners  of  the  epistemological  triangle.  We  might  compare  them 
in  their  relations  to  a  luminous  object,  Oe,  its  impress  upon  the 
surface  of  a  mirror,  Oc,  and  the  virtual  image  seen  behind  or 


THE  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  TRIANGLE  289 

through  the  mirror,  Op.  Now,  sometimes  the  virtual  image 
may  be  identical  with  the  luminous  object,  both  in  quality  and 
in  position,  as  when,  for  example,  a  luminous  object  is  placed  be- 
hind a  mirror  and  then  by  means  of  a  larger  secondary  mirror 
with  an  appropriate  curvature  of  surface  behind  the  observer  the 
light  from  the  object  is  reflected  back  into  the  surface  of  the  first 
mirror.  A  virtual  image  of  the  luminous  object  will  then  appear 
having  the  same  qualities  and  the  same  position  as  the  object  itself. 
In  the  same  way,  the  object  Op  revealed  or  implied  in  the  brain- 
state  Oc  may  be  exactly  identical  in  position  and  quality  with 
the  actually  existing  external  object,  Oe,  or  on  the  other  hand 
it  may  not.  In  the  former  case  the  object  is  apprehended  as  it 
is,  in  the  latter  case  as  it  is  not.1 

2.  The  Two  Kinds  of  Truth  and  Error.  —  If  truth  and  error  are 
generated  in  the  manner  symbolized  in  the  '  epistemological  tri- 
angle,' it  follows  that  there  will  be  two  ways  in  which  each  may 
arise.  In  the  case  of  truth,  in  which  the  real  event  Oe  is 
identical  with  the  perceived  event  Op,  the  result  may  be  due  (1) 
to  the  fact  that  the  medium  through  which  the  energy  has  been 
carried  from  the  external  object  to  the  brain  has  not  altered  the 
character  of  that  energy,  in  which  case  the  cerebral  event  Oc 
will  be  the  same  in  quality  as  Oe  and  the  local  and  temporal 
signs  of  the  former  will  be  of  such  a  kind  as  to  imply  the  real 
time  and  place  of  Oe;  or  (2)  the  medium  between  Oe  and  Oc 
may  have  qualitatively,  temporally,  and  spatially  distorted  or 
modified  the  energy  proceeding  from  Oe,  but  the  brain  through 
inherited  capacities  or  through  memory-traces  will  have  neu- 
tralized and  corrected  this  distortion  so  as  to  make  the  ulti- 
mate determining  brain-state  Oc  so  congruent  spatio-tempo- 

1  The  reader  must  guard  against  a  possible  misinterpretation  of  the  simile  of  the 
triangle  which  I  have  used  to  illustrate  the  process  of  perception.  No  two  vertices 
of  a  triangle  are  ever  numerically  identical,  whereas  we  have  seen  that  in  so  far  as 
perception  is  true  the  perceived  object  and  the  real  object  are  identical.  Oc  is  the 
effect-function  of  Oe,  and  Op  is  the  implicate-function  of  Oc.  And  just  as  any  given 
if1  root  of  art  may  or  may  not  happen  to  be  a  itself,  so  the  implicate  Op  of  the 
effect  Oc  may  or  may  not  happen  to  be  the  actual  cause  Oe. 
u 


290     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

rally  and  qualitatively  with  Oe  as  to  make  it  implicative  of 
it.  This  second  kind  of  truth  is,  I  think,  the  more  frequent  type, 
especially  hi  the  case  of  the  perception  of  external  objects.  In 
vision,  for  example,  the  retinal  image  is  notably  different  from 
the  real  object,  in  being  dualized,  in  being  inverted,  and  in  being 
otherwise  distorted,  and  yet  whether  instinctively  (as  the  na- 
tivists  would  hold)  or  by  past  experience  (as  the  associationists 
would  say)  the  brain  succeeds  in  neutralizing  these  distortions 
and  giving  a  perceived  object  which  is  often  more  truly  identical 
with  the  real  object  in  all  its  attributes  than  a  single  effect  even 
if  wholly  undistorted  could  have  revealed.  Take  for  example 
the  case  of  the  square  table  perceived  as  square.  The  retinal 
images  are  rhomboidal  and  the  first  cerebral  effects  are  probably 
proportionately  uncharacteristic  of  the  external  cause,  but,  re- 
peated experience  has  served  to  generate  a  condition  in  the  brain 
(purely  physical  but  otherwise  analogous  to  the  'apperception 
mass')  made  up  of  traces  of  the  various  visual  impresses  and  the 
motor  attitudes  excited  by  them,  which  complex  condition  is 
implicative  of  the  true  form  and  position  of  the  table.  The  cere- 
bral implication  may  in  short  be  either  of  the  direct  immediate 
sensory  type  or  of  the  indirect  mediate  and  apperceptional  type. 
Probably  the  only  case  in  which  the  first  or  sensory  kind  of  truth 
occurs  is  in  what  is  called  the  '  consciousness  of  our  own  states ' ; 
that  is,  the  consciousness  at  each  moment  of  the  brain  processes 
and  implications  of  the  just  preceding  moment.  In  this  way 
and  in  this  way  only  can  we  be  conscious  of  consciousness  or 
self-conscious.  The  brain-state  of  a  given  moment  is  never 
conscious  of  itself  as  object,  but  it  can  be  conscious  not  only  of 
extra-organic  objects,  but  also  of  the  brain-states  just  preced- 
ing it.  And  in  this  intra-organic  consciousness,  where  the  self- 
transcending  implication  'reaches'  only  to  the  next  moment, 
there  would  seem  to  be  no  chance  for  error.  In  other  words,  the 
general  impression  that  we  can  be  more  certain  of  our  own  thoughts 
and  feelings  than  of  anything  else  would  seem  to  be  well-founded. 
Before  going  on  to  consider  the  corresponding  types  of  error, 


THE  TWO  KINDS  OF  ERROR  291 

it  would  be  well  to  consider  briefly  the  difference  between  an  in- 
ferred or  conceived  object  and  one  that  is  perceived  or  directly 
apprehended.  I  believe  that  the  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  indirect  or  conceptual  consciousness  is  the  spatial  and  temporal 
discontinuity  of  the  apprehended  object  and  the  organism.  When 
we  perceive  an  object  we  are  conscious  not  merely  of  it  but  of  the 
space  and  time  which  intervenes  between  it  and  ourselves.  This 
brings  with  it  a  motor  attitude  and  a  tendency  to  immediately 
react,  which  constitutes  our  reality-feeling.  In  the  case  of  the 
conceived  imagined  or  inferred  object  there  is  no  accompanying 
consciousness  of  the  intervening  space  and  time  connecting  it 
with  our  body,  and  consequently  no  such  definite  immediate  ma- 
chinery of  motor  adjustment  is  set  up.1 

Let  us  now  consider  the  two  kinds  of  error.  We  can  deal  very 
briefly  with  them.  They  both  result,  as  we  have  seen,  from  a 
distortion  of  the  real  object  in  producing  its  effect  on  the  brain. 
The  distortion  may  be  (1)  physical  or  peripherally  physiological, 
in  which  case  we  have  the  so-called  sensory  illusions,  or  (2)  it 
may  be  central,  due  to  the  cerebral  apperception  mass,  in  which 
case  we  have  the  error  of  inference.  Of  course  we  may  have  both 
kinds  of  error  together.  And  moreover,  between  the  two  kinds 
there  is  no  hard  and  fast  distinction.  You  can  say  if  you  like  that 
"the  senses  never  lie"  and  that  even  the  so-called  perceptual 
illusions  are  illusions  of  inference.  But  this  amounts  to  nothing 
because  it  will  immediately  be  necessary  to  add  that  the  element 
of  inference  is  present  in  all  perception,  and  that  a  sensation  that 
contains  no  content  beyond  the  moment,  or  no  element  of  self- 
transcendency  and  no  tendency  to  action,  is  an  unreal  figment 
of  the  psychologist's  imagination.  The  distinction  between  per- 
ception and  inference  is  a  valuable  one,  but  not  of  such  a  charac- 
ter as  to  rob  perception  of  its  own  kind  of  self-transcending  ref- 
erence. When  a  child  clutches  at  and  misses  the  stick  which  he 
perceives  as  bent  in  the  water,  he  does  not  infer  from  an  internal 

1  Cf.  J.  McK.  Cattell,  in  Essays  Philosophical  and  Psychological  in  Honor  of 
William  James,  569. 


292     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

sensation  or  image  of  a  bent  stick  to  a  bent  stick  existing  outside 
him.  But  rather,  the  image  of  the  bent  stick  which  is  cast  upon 
his  retina  (as  it  would  be  cast  upon  a  photographic  plate)  pro- 
duces a  purely  physical  brain-state  which  directly  'implies,'  or 
has  for  its  'meaning'  or  'potentiality'  an  external  bent  stick.  The 
implicate  of  the  brain-state,  however,  happens  in  this  case  not  to 
exist,  and  therein  consists  the  error.  The  other  type  of  error  re- 
sults when  the  deliberate  inference  made  from  a  correctly  perceived 
object  to  another  object  not  perceived,'is  incorrect,  in  that  the  object 
normally  implied  by  the  situation  happens  not  to  exist. 

The  two  kinds  of  truth  and  error  which  we  have  been  consider- 
ing might  be  summed  up  and  classified  with  reference  to  the  place 
in  which  the  stimulus  is  distorted  or  corrected  as  follows : 

(1)  Absence  of  physical  or  peripheral  physiological  distortion 
combined  with  absence  of  cerebral    distortion  =  immediate  or 
sensory  truth,  as  exemplified  in  feeling  and  introspection. 

(2)  Physical  or  peripheral  physiological  distortion,   corrected 
by   cerebral    and    apperceptive    reaction  =  mediated   truth,    as 
exemplified  perceptually  in  the  apprehension  of  a  square  surface 
as  square,  and  conceptually  or  inferentially  in  the  knowledge  that 
a  thing  is  not  what  it  appears  to  be. 

(3)  Physical  or  peripheral  physiological  distortion  without  any 
corrective  counter-distortion  by  the  brain  =  immediate  or  sen- 
sory errors  and  illusions  and,  when  initiated  from  within  the  or- 
ganism, hallucinations. 

(4)  Cerebral  or  apperceptive  distortion  combined  with  absence 
ofphysical  or  peripheral  physiological  distortion  =  mediate  errors 
of  conception  and  inference,  which  when  persistent,  constitute  the 
delusions  of  insanity. 

3.  Attention  and  Belief.  —  Why  is  the  brain  not  conscious  at  each 
moment  of  all  the  implicates  or  potentialities  of  the  sensory-motor 
currents  and  traces  of  currents  which  it  contains  ?  or  why  is  the 
mind  not  always  aware  of  its  entire  stock  of  knowledge  ?  And, 
again,  why  are  we  always  more  aware,  or  more  keenly  conscious  of 
certain  objects  than  of  others?  I  believe  that  our  conception  of 


THE  TWO  KINDS  OF  ERROR  293 

consciousness  makes  possible  a  comparatively  simple  answer  to 
these  questions.  The  motions  and  stresses  in  the  cortex  in  so  far 
as  they  are  in  interaction  must  form  a  single  system  and  set  up  a 
condition  analogous  to  that  of  a  single  body  acted  upon  by  many  di- 
verse and  opposing  forces.  A  body  in  such  a  situation  has  at  each 
moment  a  dominant  tendency  to  move  in  the  direction  of  the  re- 
sultant of  the  forces  acting  upon  it.  The  intensity  of  this  dominant 
tendency  or  controlling  bias  will  vary  with  two  factors:  (1)  the  ab- 
solute total  intensities  of  the  forces;  (2)  the  degree  of  unity  of  direc- 
tion of  the  forces  relatively  to  one  another.  Now  we  shall  not 
need  to  commit  ourselves  to  any  elaborate  system  of  psycho- 
dynamics  to  recognize  that  attention  is  'absorbed,'  or  'drawn/ 
in  a  given  direction  not  only  by  the  intensity  of  sensation, 
but  also  by  the  extent  to  which  there  is  absence  of  rivalry.  There  is 
both  an  absolute  and  a  relativistic  factor  in  the  situation.  Now  the 
objects  that  we  are  conscious  of  at  any  given  moment  will  be  the 
implicates  of  the  resultant  of  cortical  forces  acting  together.  And 
just  as  a  body  cannot  move  in  both  a  northerly  and  southerly 
direction  at  once,  so  for  the  same  reason  it  will  be  necessary  for  some 
of  the  cortical  tendencies  to  be  absolutely  counteracted,  or  eclipsed 
by  the  others.  This  would,  I  think,  explain  why  a  large  part  of 
what  is  'in  the  mind'  must  be  extruded  absolutely  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  any  one  moment.  But  while  one  cortical  tendency 
may  completely  suppress  another,  it  may  also  only  fuse  with  it, 
dominating  it  not  absolutely,  but  only  partially,  and  then  we 
should  have  the  implicate  of  the  dominant  tendency  as  the  cen- 
tral and  most  prominent  object  in  the  field  of  attention  with  im- 
plicates of  the  lesser  but  not  absolutely  counteracted  tendencies 
figuring  as  objects  in  the  more  marginal  parts  of  that  field.  And 
from  this  it  would  follow  that  except  in  unified  and  systematized 
complexes,  the  intensity  of  attention  would  vary  inversely  with 
its  extensity.  The  mechanical  analogy  of  the  forces  acting  upon 
a  body  is  imperfect,  mainly  because  it  applies  merely  to  movement  in 
tridimensional  space,  whereas  in  the  field  of  cortical  forces  we 
have  not  merely  tendencies  to  movement,  but  all  sorts  of  tenden- 


294     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

cies  correlated  \vith  the  higher  derivatives  of  space  with  regard 
to  time.  And  the  field  of  implicates  or  objects  of  consciousness 
constitutes  as  it  were  a  multidimensional  manifold  incomparably 
richer  than  the  mere  system  of  space  and  time  relations. 

And  now  as  to  belief:  it  seems  probable  that  the  primary  con- 
dition of  consciousness  is  a  condition  of  acceptance  of  cerebral 
implicates  or  conscious  contents  at  their  face  value  as  real  and  as 
bases  for  action.  Disbelief  and  doubt  are  sophisticated  or  sec- 
ondary attitudes  which  we  take  towards  a  content  only  when 
it  is  contradicted  by  another  content  or  by  the  system  as  a  whole. 
A  person  believes  a  thing  or  accepts  it  as  real  and  tends  to  act  on 
it  just  in  so  far  as  there  is  no  content  present  which  suggests  ac- 
tually or  hypothetically  a  counteraction.  In  hypnotism  we  seem 
to  have  a  case  in  which  the  ordinary  associations  are  cut  off  and 
there  is  nothing  to  inhibit  action  in  accordance  with  what  is  sug- 
gested. The  mind  thus  relapses  to  its  primary  naive  attitude 
of  belief  in  the  reality  of  all  its  objects.  But  the  field  of  belief 
at  any  one  moment  will  normally  be  much  narrower  than  the  field 
of  attention  at  that  moment,  for  the  same  reason  as  that  which 
makes  it  possible  for  a  body  to  tend  to  move  in  several  directions 
so  long  as  they  are  not  actually  opposite,  but  prevents  it  from  ac- 
tually moving  in  more  than  one  direction.  So  we  may  entertain 
and  compare  a  number  of  contradictory  proposals  without  con- 
tradiction, but  we  could  not  believe  them  all  for  the  action  based 
on  any  one  of  them  would  contradict  or  preclude  action  based  on 
any  other. 

4.  The  Material  Fallacy  of  Psychophysical  Metonymy.  —  In  the 
first  division  of  our  essay  we  discussed  the  fallacy  of  identify- 
ing the  thing  experienced  with  the  experiencing  of  it,  simply  on 
the  ground  that  by  metonymy,  the  same  word  'experience'  was 
used  to  denote  both  the  psychical  act  and  the  physical  object  of 
that  act.  And  we  found  that  the  two  consequences  of  that  fallacy 
were  first,  a  false  but  seemingly  axiomatic  proof  of  idealism  and 
second,  a  false  conception  of  the  nature  of  logic  and  the  laws  of 
thought.  Now  there  is  a  somewhat  similar  fallacy  with  similar 


ATTENTION  AND  BELIEF  295 

consequences  which  is  based  upon  a  misconception  of  the  relation 
of  consciousness  to  its  objects.  ^  But  this  fallacy  is  not  verbal,  but 
material.  We  can  state  it  briefly  as  follows :  Which  objects  I 
shall  at  any  moment  be  conscious  of  depends  upon  my  own  processes 
and  states,  therefore  the  objects  of  which  I  am  conscious  depend 
upon  my  own  states  and  consequently  cannot  be  real  apart  from  them. 
This  argument,  like  the  one  considered  before  would,  if  it  proved 
anything,  prove  too  much,  for  it  would  mean  that  other  minds, 
as  well  as  physical  objects,  would  depend  upon  being  known. 
But  we  may  waive  this  point  and  content  ourselves  with  a  direct 
refutation  of  the  argument.  It  is  true  that  'what  objects'  or 
'which  objects'  I  am  conscious  of  depends  upon  my  cerebral 
processes,  but  this  does  not  imply  a  causal  relation  of  depend- 
ence between  those  objects  and  my  cerebral  processes.  There 
is  indeed  precisely  the  same  concomitant  variation  between  the 
movements  of  my  finger  in  pointing  and  the  objects  pointed  at. 
No  one  will  deny  that  'which  objects'  I  point  at  will  depend  on 
how  and  where  I  move  my  finger.  But  no  one  will  affirm  that 
therefore  the  things  pointed  at  depend  on  my  pointing  and  cannot 
exist  apart  from  it.  In  the  same  way,  'which  objects'  I  write 
about  will  depend  on  the  words  I  use,  but  no  one  will  say  that  there- 
fore those  objects  depend  upon  their  own  names.  Now  the  re- 
lation of  the  cerebral  state  as  implier  to  the  apprehended  object 
as  implicate,  with  which  relation  we  identified  consciousness, 
is  in  this  matter  of  concomitant  variation  and  dependence  pre- 
cisely analogous  to  the.  relation  of  the  pointing  finger  to  the  object 
pointed  at  or  the  relation  of  a  name  to  the  object  of  which  it  is  the 
name.  The  relation  or  act  is  in  each  case  selective  and  not  cre- 
ative or  constitutive  in  any  manner  or  to  any  degree.  In  short, 
we  cannot  infer  from  the  dependence  of  'which  objects'  to  a  de- 
pendence of  'the  objects.' 

The  first  consequence  of  the  material  fallacy  of  psychophysi- 
cal  metonymy  is  of  course  the  one  implied  in  the  exposition  just 
given.  It  constitutes  the  principal  proof  of  idealism;  and  as 
an  argument  it  seems  less  axiomatic,  but  more  solidly  empirical 


296     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

and  convincing  than  the  verbal  fallacy  of  the  same  name.  The 
subjectivist  presses  his  eye-ball  and  sees  a  chair  that  moves  where 
formerly  he  saw  a  chair  that  was  stationary.  This  should  suffice 
to  convince  him  that  how  you  see  a  thing  depends  on  how  you  see 
it ;  but  not  content  with  this  modest  inference  he  jumps  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  things  which  he  sees  depend  on  his  seeing 
them,  —  which  is  different.  And,  as  we  have  said,  he  never  stops 
to  consider  that  the  other  minds  in  whose  independent  reality  he 
believes  are  relative  in  just  the  same  sense  to  the  processes  by 
virtue  of  which  he  thinks  of  them. 

The  second  consequence  of  this  fallacy  of  metonymy  consists  in  a 
far-reaching  and  widely  prevalent  misconception  of  the  nature  of  the 
thinking  process,  and  especially  of  the  j  udgment  process.  Judgment 
is  the  utterance  or  expression  of  a  belief,  (tentative  or  certain)  in  the 
reality  of  an  identity-complex,  or  proposition.  An  utterance  is  an 
act  that  takes  a  certain  amount  of  time.  The  symbols  of  its 
expression  have  to  come  in  a  certain  sequence,  e.g.  subject,  copula, 
predicate.  The  judgment  is  often  the  outcome  of  many  other  acts, 
and  usually  involves  effort  and  activity  of  various  kinds  on  the 
part  of  the  one  who  makes  the  judgment.  Now  all  this  belongs 
to  the  biography  of  the  one  who  judges.  The  fallacy  in  question 
reads  this  chapter  of  the  thinker's  biography  into  the  biography  of 
the  object  of  his  thought.  We  start  out  with  the  judgment,  A  is  B ; 
finding  this  untrue,  we  make  a  new  judgment,  A  is  C ;  perhaps  this 
leads  us  to  believe  that  A  is  not  only  C,  but  is  also  D  and  E.  All 
of  which  may  be  very  interesting  and  important  for  us,  and  may 
constitute  a  profound  alteration  and  enrichment  of  our  natures ; 
but  it  is  not  interesting  and  important  for  the  object,  and  it  does 
not  constitute  any  alteration  or  enrichment  in  the  nature  of  the 
object.  It  is  our  privilege  to  learn,  sometimes  suddenly  and 
easily,  and  sometimes  with  much  time  and  effort,  the  nature  of 
the  real  things  about  us ;  and  it  is  our  misfortune  that  sometimes 
we  fail  to  discover  reality  and  succeed  in  discovering  only  its  con- 
tradictory or  shadow,  i.e.  the  unreal  and  false.  But  all  this  is 
neither  a  privilege  nor  a  misfortune  for  the  reality  that  we  do  or 


THE  MATERIAL  FALLACY  OF  METONYMY     297 

do  not  discover,  except  of  course  in  the  quite  indirect  sense  that 
our  judgments  may  lead  to  behavior  which  may  later  effect  the 
objects  discovered.  Our  judgments  can  remain  unchanged  even 
when  they  refer  to  objects  as  changing  as  fire,  or  they  can  change 
and  evolve  even  when  their  objects  are  as  changeless  as  the  Sphinx 
or  the  square  root  of  minus  one.  And  yet  it  is  often  assumed  that 
the  world  can  be  proved  to  be  dynamic  and  changeful  because  our 
judging  process  is  that.  There  is  no  inference  possible  from  the 
changing  or  static  nature  of  our  judgments  to  the  changing  or 
static  nature  of  what  is  judged  about.  We  do  not  break  up  the 
living  flux  of  reality  when  we  conceive  of  its  various  phases  and 
aspects.  Conception  does  not  dirempt  reality,  and  judgment 
is  not  the  process  of  pasting  its  pieces  together.  Conception 
and  judgment  are,  like  all  cognitions,  not  constitutive,  but  se- 
lective. To  conceive  is  to  apprehend  simply  one  quality  or  group 
of  qualities,  and  to  judge  is  to  apprehend  an  identity-relation 
between  different  qualities  or  groups  of  qualities.1 

5.  Degrees  of  Truth  and  Error  and  the  Fallacy  of  Internal  Rela- 
tions. —  All  or  almost  all  of  our  cognitions  are  partly  true  and  partly 
false.  Expressed  in  our  own  terminology,  the  brain  states  at  any 
moment  have,  for  their  self  -transcending  implicates,  objects  some 
of  which  are  real  and  some  of  which  are  unreal  or  merely  sub- 
j  ective.2  The  cause  of  this  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  fact  that  our  cere- 


a  more  systematic  demonstration  of  this  theory  that  judgment  (like  all 
other  forms  of  consciousness)  is  purely  selective  and  never  constitutive  cf.  my  dis- 
cussion of  Dr.  Schiller's  Humanism  in  "May  a  Realist  be  a  Pragmatist"  /.  of 
Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  6,  565-6.  With  reference  to  the  manner  in  which  '  anti-intel- 
lectualism  '  by  neglecting  this  view  confuses  the  relations  between  the  symbols  used 
in  making  judgments  with  the  prepositional  content  asserted  by  the  judgment  c/. 
/.  of  Phil.,  Psychol,  etc.,  7,  153-4. 

*  Anything  in  so  far  as  it  figures  as  an  object  in  consciousness  may  be  called  '  sub- 
jective '  in  the  broad  sense  ;  but  the  word  is  more  commonly  used  in  the  narrow 
sense  of  '  merely  subjective  '  to  denote  objects  of  consciousness  which  are  unreal  or 
non-existent,  such  as  the  events  in  a  dream  or  the  content  of  a  hallucination.  There 
is  nothing  that  is  of  necessity  mental  or  psychical  about  these  subjective  objects. 
But  the  fact  that  as  non-existent  or  unreal  subsistents  they  have  no  proper  place 
of  their  own  in  the  spatio-temporal  system  and  hence  act  only  on  and  through  the 
mind  that  knows  them  led  to  their  being  treated  as  mental  in  the  same  sense  as  de- 


298     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

bral  states  are  in  part,  and  only  in  part,  the  effects  of  the  objects 
external  to  them  and  known  by  them.  The  physical  medium 
and  the  brain  itself  is  always  partly  responsible  for  the  cerebral 
state.  And  the  aberration  thus  effected  is  probably  never  en- 
tirely corrected.  *  The  source  of  error  in  other  words  is  due  to  the 
plurality  of  causes  and  to  the  counteraction  of  effects.  Now  the 
understanding  of  the  source  of  error  at  once  suggests  the  means, 
not  indeed  for  its  complete  cure,  but  for  an  indefinitely  progres- 
sive amelioration.  The  more  effects  we  have  of  things,  the  less 
ambiguity  there  is  in  their  joint  implication ;  and  though  each  one 
may  have  been  partly  modified,  yet  these  modifications  may  be 
neutralized  by  one  another.  A  great  number  of  pretty  bad  photo- 
graphs of  a  person  might  suffice  better  to  give  us  an  accurate  idea 
of  his  appearance  than  one  fairly  good  photograph.  The  totality 
of  a  thing's  effects,  even  though  each  had  been  interfered  with, 
would  not,  indeed,  be  themselves  identical  with  the  thing,  but 
they  would  be  exactly  and  adequately  implicative  of  it.  And 
the  more  effects  we  get  of  a  thing,  the  more  nearly  adequate  is 
our  knowledge  of  it.  If  the  stick  partly  immersed  in  water  could 
effect  us  only  through  our  eyes,  and  from  only  one  point  of  view,  we 
should  never  discover  the  error  of  regarding  it  as  bent.  But  it 
effects  us  from  many  points  of  view,  and  through  touch  as  well 
as  vision,  and  thus  the  error  of  immediate  perception  is  discovered 
and  rendered  innocuous.  In  this  way  we  can  test  our  knowledge 
and  attain  ever  more  and  more  probability  of  truth. 

From  this  standpoint  it  might  be  well  to  consider  errors  of 
quality  as  distinguished  from  errors  of  position  or  numerical  identity. 
We  may  perceive  a  thing  in  the  right  place  and  time,  but  the  quali- 

sires  and  volitions  are  mental.  This  natural  confusion  was  the  first  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  subjectivism.  It  reduced  all  non-existent  objects  to  the  realm  of  mind 
and  led  naturally  to  the  view  that  all  objects  in  so  far  as  they  were  known  thereby 
became  states  of  the  knower.  The  truth  is  simply  this  :  Real  objects  have  two  sets 
of  consequences.  They  effect  other  objects  continuous  with  them  in  the  world  of 
space  and  time  and  they  also  affect  whoever  knows  them.  Unreal  objects,  how- 
ever, have  no  effects  or  consequences  of  any  kind  except  upon  the  persona  in  whose 
consciousness  they  figure. 


DEGREES  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR      299 

ties  which  we  perceive  it  to  have  may  never  occur  in  it.  They 
may  be  qualities  such  as  are  only  correlated  with  or  produced  by 
energies  peculiar  to  our  nervous  system.  There  would  be  real 
error  involved  in  such  a  situation,  but  it  would  not  of  necessity 
result  in  harm  to  us.  As  long  as  the  qualities  really  present  in 
the  objects  varied  in  one-to-one  correspondence  with  the  quali- 
ties apprehended,  we  should  be  well  enough  off  for  practical  pur- 
poses. I  may  here  remark  that  this  may  be  our  plight  with  re- 
gard to  the  secondary  qualities  (though  not  with  regard  to  the 
primary  qualities  whose  reality  is  vindicated  indirectly  as  well  as 
perceptually).  The  problem  of  the  external  reality  of  the  sec- 
ondary qualities  is  neither  solved  nor  intrinsically  insoluble.  The 
way  and  the  only  way  we  could  settle  the  matter  would  be  to 
gain  exact  knowledge  of  the  primary  energies  occurring  in,  or  on 
the  surface  of,  the  external  bodies,  and  an  equally  exact  knowledge 
of  the  primary  energies  in  the  appropriate  sensory  cerebral  tracts, 
and  then  compare  them.  In  so  far  as  they  were  the  same  or  differ- 
ent, we  should  be  certain  that  the  secondary  qualities  of  things 
were  or  were  not  as  we  perceived  them. 

Now  if  we  allowed  the  fact  that  every  object  of  consciousness 
was  partly  true  and  partly  false  to  make  us  believe  that  there- 
fore the  real  world  might  be  in  every  respect  different  from  what 
we  perceive,  we  should  commit  the  fallacy  of  internal  relations. 
For  that  fallacy  consists  in  the  assumption  that  the  nature  of  the 
parts  of  a  complex  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  whole  complex, 
and  consequently,  that  knowledge  of  merely  a  part  of  the  truth 
must  as  such  be  false.  Spaulding  has  refuted  this  fallacy  in  his 
defense  of  analysis.  We  do  not  have  to  have  all  truth  in  order  to 
have  some  truth.  I  can  misapprehend  some  qualities  of  an  object 
without  misapprehending  its  other  qualities.  And  because  I 
erred  in  perceiving  its  qualities  it  would  not  follow  that  I  erred  as 
to  its  position  and  relations ;  nor  if  I  erred  as  to  its  position  need 
I  err  as  to  its  qualities.  The  complex  of  real  and  unreal  elements 
which  makes  up  the  object  of  consciousness  may  be  analyzed 
and  tested  part  by  part.  Failure  to  attain  certainty  or  to  remove 


300     A  THEORY  OF  TRUTH  AND  ERROR 

error  in  one  respect  will  not  make  everything  false  or  even  doubt- 
ful. 

6.  Summary. —  Our  effort  in  this  third  and  final  division  of  our 
inquiry  has  been  to  explain  the  conditions  under  which  truth  and 
error  arise.  Presupposing  the  conception  of  the  meaning  of  truth 
and  error  outlined  in  the  first  division,  and  proceeding  on  the  basis 
of  the  theory  of  consciousness  set  forth  in  the  second  division,  we 
have  attempted  to  demonstrate  in  terms  of  the  '  epistemological 
triangle '  how  the  resultant  system  of  cerebral  currents  and  memory 
traces  may  sometimes  and  in  some  respects  imply  real  things  and 
relations  outside  itself,  and  how  it  may  at  other  times  and  in  other 
respects  imply  the  unreal  contradictories  of  these. 

As  we  said  at  the  outset  of  our  discussion,  the  problem  of  truth 
and  error  has  a  peculiar  bearing  upon  the  controversy  between 
realism  and  subjectivism.  Realism  flourishes  naturally  as  long 
as  man  attains  truth.  It  is  the  fact  of  error  that  has  led  to 
subjectivism.  Indeed  we  might  say,  without  intending  an  im- 
pertinence, that  subjectivism  is  founded  upon  error  and  that 
realism  is  founded  upon  truth.  Error  is  as  real  as  truth,  but  its 
reality  is  not  incompatible  with  the  reality  of  the  world. 


THE  PLACE  OF   ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE   IN  A 
REALISTIC  WORLD 


I. 
r 


THE  PLAC*    OF  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE  IN  A 
REALISTIC  WORLD 

BY  EDWIN  B.  HOLT 

ILLUSION,  hallucination,  and  the  erroneous  experience  in  general, 
we  are  told,  can  have  no  place  in  a  universe  where  everything  is 
non-mental  or  real :  and  they  cannot  be  satisfactorily  accounted 
for  by  realistic  philosophy.  Such  is  the  challenge  that  has  been 
repeatedly  thrown  out  from  the  idealist  to  the  realist  camp.  And 
although  it  has  recently  been  taken  up  and  admirably  answered 
in  two  all  but  impeccable  articles  by  Professor  Alexander  and  Mr. 
Nunn,1  I  propose  to  take  up  the  issue  once  more  and  to  add  some- 
thing if  possible  to  the  measure  of  satisfaction  already  vouchsafed 
by  these  two  gentlemen.  A  closer  definition  of  the  terms  used  in 
the  dispute  is  not  necessary  at  the  outset,  for  they  are  offered  and 
may  be  accepted  as  the  current  names  for  fairly  unambiguous 
phenomena.  Sharper  definitions,  however,  for  these  and  other 
terms  will  emerge  in  the  course  of  the  argument. 


ILLUSIONS    OF    PERCEPTION    AND    THOUGHT 

Erroneous  experiences  have  been  assumed  to  come  under  four 
heads,  according  as  the  error  is  one  of  space,  of  time,  of  ('second- 
ary') quality,  or  of  judgment  (thought). 

1.  Errors  of  Space. — An  object  is  frequently  seen  as  nearer 
or  farther,  as  larger  or  smaller  than  it  really  is;  it  may  be  seen  in- 
verted in  position  or  distorted  in  shape,  it  may  be  seen  double 
or  triple  (spatially  reduplicated) ;  and  the  same  frailties  attach 
to  the  senses  of  hearing  and  touch  and  to  other  modes  of  appre- 

1  Alexander,  S.,  On  Sensations  and  Images.  Proc.  of  the  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1910, 
N.S.  10,  1-35.  Nunn,  T.  Percy.  Are  Secondary  Qualities  Independent  of  Per- 
ception ?  Ibid.,  191-218. 

303 


304  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE; 

hension,  such  as  that,  for  an  instance,  in  which  the  semicircular 
canals  are  a  contributory  factor.  The  person  sees  what  is  not  there, 
hence  the  act  of  seeing  is  constitutive  in  the  case,  hence  the  illu- 
sory object  (however  it  may  be  with  a  correctly  perceived  one) 
is  essentially  mental  and  subjective.  Thus  if  the  two  eyes  are 
sharply  converged  and  then  one  eye  is  closed,  near  objects  (far 
ones  are  now  out  of  focus)  are  seen  as  both  nearer  and  smaller 
than  ordinarily,  or  than  they  really  are.  ('Really  are'  just 
happens  not  to  be  a  realist's  phrase,  as  shall  be  explained  later, 
but  I  shall  use  it  and  still  refrain  from  quotation  marks  out  of 
deference  to  the  opponent,  who,  to  judge  by  his  actions,  is  unable 
to  state  his  case  against  realism  except  he  be  granted  handy  ac- 
cess to  some  things  that  'really  are.')  Now  there  is  a  machine 
for  manufacturing  the  lasts  on  which  shoes  are  made.  A  model 
last  is  placed  in  contact  with  one  end  of  an  arm  and  the  machine 
at  once  carves  out  of  a  block  of  wood  a  second  last  which  is  like 
the  model.  The  machine  at  work  has  quite  the  air  of  seeing  its 
model.  Indeed,  the  comparison  between  duplicate  and  model 
has  an  uncanny  resemblance  to  the  subject-object  relation.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  there  is  an  adjustment  which  can  be  effected 
such  that  the  duplicate  last  is  turned  out  smaller  than  the  original, 
but  otherwise  still  like  it,  and  the  same  adjustment  brings  any 
point  that  shall  be  geometrically  denned  as  the  center  of  the  last 
nearer  to  the  important  part  of  the  machine,  the  cutting  edge. 
I  forbear  to  press  the  analogy :  the  essential  point  is,  merely,  that 
a  mechanical  manipulation  of  the  eyes  which  brings  things  nearer 
and  makes  them  smaller  argues  nothing  for  mentality  or  subjec- 
tivity, for  there  is  another  machine  at  hand  which  can  be  as  readily 
manipulated  with  the  very  same  effect.  And  in  the  shoe-last 
machine  I  imagine  that  our  opponent,  so  far  from  discovering  the 
subject-object  relation  and  so  forth,  will  even  feign  to  evade  the 
comparison. 

However,  our  next  case  is  his  own  favorite  out  of  a  not  too- 
varied  repertory.  If  a  person  presses  one  of  his  eye-balls  out  of 
place,  and  keeps  both  eyes  open,  he  will  see  double.  He  sees, 


SPATIAL  ILLUSIONS  305 

for  instance,  a  second  mare's  nest  which  isn't  really  there.  This 
demonstrates  a  remarkable  creative  function  inherent  in  mental 
process.  A  too  literally-minded  person  might  ask  if  it  did  not 
somehow  depend  on  there  being  two  eyes,  and  this  the  more  as 
the  direction  given  for  setting  this  creative  function  of  mind  in 
operation  was  distinctly  physical,  i.e.  a  jab  on  the  eye-ball.  In- 
deed, it  could  almost  be  said  to  be  directed  on  the  eye  rather  than 
addressed  to  the  mind.  This  notion  becomes  even  more  plausi- 1 
ble  when  one  remembers  that  the  stereoscopic  camera  habitually  | 
sees  double.  The  notion  becomes  a  certainty  from  the  circum- 
stance that  in  the  case  of  a  person  with  two  eyes  of  which  one  is 
blind,  with,  however,  a  creative  mental  apparatus  equal  to  any  1 
the  best  you  may  find,  —  in  such  a  case  the  charm  works  not  at 
all.  (It  does  not  work  even  if  a  normal-sighted  person  closes  one 
eye-lid  during  the  experiment.)  This  is  proof  by  the  Baconian 
canon,  so  long  as  our  opponent  adduces  only  two  factors  —  the 
pair  of  eyes  and  the  mental  process.  Or,  to  return  to  concrete 
experience,  I  will  ask  the  opponents  of  realism  this :  Do  they  in- 
deed think  that  of  the  two  images  of  one  object  which  are  given  • 
in  the  stereoscopic  camera  one  of  the  images  is  'illusory'  be- 
cause but  one  outer  object  is  really  there?  Does  the  camera 
lie  ?  If  not,  why  is  one  of  the  two  images  on  occasion  given  in 
human  vision,  any  the  more  illusory?  "Ah,  but,"  is  the  reply, 
"no  one  asserts  that  the  image  in  the  camera  is  the  object  out  in 
front."  To  which  I  say  that  realism  asserts  just  this,  —  the 
image  is  genuinely  (a  part  only,  but  a  true  part,  of)  the  object 
photographed.  The  professional  photographer  asserts  it,  saying, 
in  the  manner  of  his  trade,  "We  have  caught  your  exact  ex- 
pression, Madame."  And  we  all  speak,  as  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son spoke,  of  "just  that  secret  quality  in  a  face  that  is  apt  to  slip 
out  somehow  under  the  cunningest  painter's  touch,  and  leave 
the  portrait  dead  for  lack  of  it"  ("An  Autumn  Effect").  The 
physicist  or  astronomer  absolutely  asserts  that  his  photograph 
of  a  spectrum  is  integrally  the  spectrum  under  study.  Now  the 
realist  contends  that  when  we  say  such  things  we  mean  them; 


306  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

the  opponent,  that  we  do  not.  Yet  everybody  except  this  per- 
verse school  of  philosophers  continues  to  assert  the  same  in  any 
case  whatsoever  of  '  reproduction '  in  art  or  craft ;  and  the  philoso- 
phers of  that  school  assert  it  the  instant  they  have  doffed  their 
professional  perruque  and  descended  from  the  cathedra.  Whether 
they  admit  this  or  not,  the  point  which  they  must  admit  is  that 
reduplication,  if  only  of  'images,'  is  a  common  feature  of  purely 
I  physical  systems,  and  that  therefore  the  occurrence  of  redupli- 
cation as  a  function  of  the  human  organs  of  sense  argues  nothing 
for  subjectivity  lying  behind  that  sense.  The  relation  of  'image' 
to  the  object  and  then  to  knowledge  we  shall  presently  examine. 

Or  again  an  astigmatic  eye  distorts  its  object ;  so  does  a  roughly 
cast  glass  lens,  and  so  do  the  innumerable  facets  on  the  surface 
of  troubled  waters.  A  stimulation  of  the  two  sacs  in  the  inner 
ear  translocates  one  part  of  perceived  space  within  an  otherwise 
perceived  space;  just  so  every  mirror  and  other  reflecting  sur- 
face makes  a  new  translocated  space,  which  is  in  all  ways  geometri- 
cally viable  and  is  within  the  original  real  space :  and  so  on  for 
every  one  of  the  spatial  illusions  and  hallucinations. 

Our  opponent  must  withdraw  from  his  citation  of  cases  in 
which  the  organs  of  sense  yield  multiplied  or  distorted  images, 
because  of  the  invariable  parallel  to  strictly  physical  systems. 
And  he  must  stand  on  a  ground  further  back ;  which  would  be, 
as  several  of  our  opponents  have  indeed  made  their  particular 
point,  that  not  the  distorted  image  as  such,  but  the  distorted 
image  which  asserts  itself  to  be,  or  which  the  realist  asserts  to  be  the 
real  object,  —  that  this  is  the  crux  for  realism.  In  order  to  be 
fair  I  hasten  to  add  that  not  a  few  of  the  opponents  of  realism  have 
not  to  retreat  to  this  ground,  since  it  is  their  original  position. 
And  I  am  only  too  eager  to  meet  them  there,  as  I  shall  do  in  due 
course.  Meanwhile  many  of  our  opponents  have  undertaken 
to  occupy  the  ground  which  I  claim  that  we  have  just  covered, 
and  all  opponents  are  to  be  reckoned  with.  Indeed,  it  remains 
true  that  in  nearly  every  case  where  the  idealist  has  ventured 
within  the  somewhat  unfamiliar  and  ticklish  region  of  the  concrete, 


SPATIAL  ILLUSIONS  307 

he  has  brought  against  realism  the  charge  which  I  have  just  par- 
tially refuted.  I  say  'partially,'  not  because  I  account  the  physi- 
cal parallels  of  illusion  as  inconclusive,  but  because  we  have  so 
far  considered  only  the  spatial  cases.  We  now  proceed  to  the 
next  group. 

2.  Errors  of  Time.  —  An  object  is  not  only  frequently,  but  in- 
variably seen  at  a  moment  of  time  later  than  that  when  it  had  the 
position  and  other  circumstances  which  it  still  has  in  our  vision 
of  it.  The  illustration  hallowed  by  the  tenderest  association  for 
the  idealist  seems  to  be  the  case  of  seeing  the  sun  or  other  heavenly 
bodies  some  millions  of  years  behind  time,  or  indeed  millions  of 
years  after  it  may  have  ceased  really  to  exist.  But  now  what 
advantage  over  us  has  the  photographic  plate,  as  plainly  physical 
and  as  little  mental  or  illusory  as  we  all  grant  that  to  be  ?  And 
if  it  be  paradoxical  and  for  realism  ominous  that  we  can  see  a 
real  thing  long  after  it  has  ceased  to  be  real,  how  much  more 
paradoxical  and  ominous  must  it  be  for  physics  if  it  is  obliged  to 
concede  that  each  smallest  physical  object  remains  under  the 
direct  and  real  influence  of  other  physical  objects  which  have  not 
been  existent  or  real  for  millions  of  years.  It  seems  to  me  that  this 
argument  proves  either  all  or  nothing.  It  may,  I  fancy,  open 
up  magnificent  vistas  to  theosophists  and  clairvoyants;  but  my 
imagination  halts  when  I  try  to  conceive  what  it  can  open  up  to 
a  sane  and  sober  philosopher.  Nevertheless  such  a  passage  as 
the  following  is  characteristic  of  the  greater  number  of  writers 
who  are  just  now  so  superbly  stooping  to  take  notice  of  realism. 
"The  'real'  object  always  exists  earlier  in  time  than  the  perceived 
object,  which  we  hastily  assume  to  be  the  'real'  object,  yet  which  is 
really  but  an  element  in  our  own  experience,  and  not  the  ob- 
ject, or  eject,  which  exists  in  and  for  itself."  l  Succinctly  stated, 
the  astonishing  argument  is  that  the  mental  image  is  not  a  part 
of  the  real  world,  but  is  distinctly  non-physical  and  non-real, 
and  belongs  intrinsically  to  another,  the  subjective  order  of  being, 

1  Drake,  D.,  The  Inadequacy  of  'Natural'  Realism,  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc., 
1911,  8,  371. 


308  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

because  it  lags  in  time  behind  the  real  order  of  things :  and  this 
is  urged  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  every  case  of  image  which 
can  be  cited  from  the  strictly  physical  world  lags  in  exactly  the 
same  way  behind  its  real  physical  prototype. 

Some  of  our  opponents,  as  hi  the  previous  case  of  spatial  illu- 
sions, stand  on  the  safer  ground  of  affirming  that  not  the  delayed 
image  as  such,  but  the  delayed  image  which  asserts  itself  to  be, 
or  which  the  realist  asserts  to  be  the  real  object,  —  is  the  crux 
for  realism.  Thus  one  critic  affirms  that  "In  the  face  of  inter- 
vening machinery  (of  sense-perception)  and  the  lapse  of  time, 
realism  cannot  persist  in  saying  that  the  very  object  thrusts  it- 
self in  amongst  the  contents  of  consciousness."  We  shall  consider 
this  latter  argument  in  due  course,  but  for  those  who  find  some- 
thing in  the  former  argument  I  wish  to  suggest  an  illustration 
which  they  may  find  useful  in  their  future  animadversions  on  this 
point,  since  it  will  be  more  novel  than  the  somewhat  threadbare 
case  of  seeing  the  non-existing  sun,  and  furthermore  in  their 
eyes  more  damaging  to  the  cause  of  realism.  One  discovers  in 
the  psychological  laboratory  a  kind  of  lapse  of  attention  dur- 
ing which  sensory  stimulations  are  prevented  from  reaching  the 
sensorium,  or  from  coming  to  consciousness;  yet  if  the  lapse  is 
brief,  say  not  over  five-tenths  of  a  second,  sensory  stimulations 
given  during  the  lapse  reach  consciousness  afterwards  and  are 
then  perceived  in  the  reverse  of  their  true  time  order.  This  is,  of 
course,  hard  on  realism,  although  the  same  reversal  happens  to  a 
bunch  of  delayed  telegrams,  letters,  or  express  parcels. 

3.  Errors  in  Secondary  Qualities,  —  The  detachment  of  second- 
ary qualities  from  physical  objects  has  seemed  so  conspicuous 
to  the  makers  of  history,  that  these  qualities  are  rather  generally 
deemed  to  exist  in  minds  and  nowhere  else,  to  be  in  very  essence 
mental.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  group  of  thinkers  who 
assert  that  the  secondary  qualities  are  not  in  minds  at  all,  neither 
ideas  nor  even  sensations  being  endowed  with  these  qualities.  In 
this  case  either  they  are  spoken  of  as  if  they  were  a  part  of  the 
physical  objects,  or  else  no  status  or  habitat  whatsoever,  so  far 


TEMPORAL  ILLUSIONS  309 

as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  is  assigned  to  them.  I  take 
it  that  in  urging  the  case  of  secondary  qualities  against  realism, 
our  opponent  assumes  the  case  (for  him)  contrary  to  fact,  that 
the  qualities  are  out  there  on  the  objects,  and  undertakes  to  argue 
to  a  reductio  ad  absurdum. 

The  larger  part  of  illusory  instances  here  hi  question  needs  but 
brief  comment,  for  their  case  is  still  parallel  to  the  cases  already 
considered.  As  one  passes  down  a  dark  street  and  past  a  lighted 
window,  the  darkness  of  the  street  seems  more  profound,  although 
the  night  is  really  no  darker :  but  just  so  a  photographic  plate 
carried  past  the  light  of  the  window  is  thenceforward  less  sensi- 
tive to  the  faint  illumination  of  the  darkness  beyond,  and  this 
illumination  is  for  it  one  of  reduced  intensity.  But  in  such  a 
simple  fact  of  modified  physical  process  no  one  sees  raised  at  all 
the  issue  between  reality  and  unreality,  or  between  the  material 
and  the  mental.  The  hill  and  wood  that  one  looks  out  upon  are 
practically  invariable  in  their  chemical  properties,  yet  as  the  day 
progresses  they  are  seen  in  a  perpetual  variety  of  light,  shade,  and 
hue :  but  their  luminous  properties,  although  invariable,  are  invari- 
able functions  of  the  incident  illumination,  functions  whose  particular 
values  vary  therewith ;  so  that  the  light  that  is  reflected  is  hi  reality 
ever  changing.  Since  it  is  reflected  light  that  is  perceived  in  this 
case,  and  not  the  invariable  functions,  it  would  be  a  falsification 
of  reality  if  the  light  were  not  seehi  in  perpetual  flux.  The  ortho- 
chromatic  moving  film  will  record  this  diurnal  flux  in  an  entirely 
parallel  way.  The  change  of  'appearance'  as  an  object  is  carried 
from  peripheral  to  foveal  vision  is  only  a  case  of  one  light  differ- 
ently affecting  differently  sensitized  surfaces:  and  the  'brightness 
distribution'  of  the  totally  color-blind  eye  is  photographed  out- 
right by  exposing  a  tube  filled  with  a  solution  of  visual  purple 
from  the  eyes  of  frogs,  to  the  several  wave-lengths  of  the  spectrum. 

A  feeble  tone  sounds  fainter  when  a  stronger  tone  is  sounded : 
so  too  it  will  yield  less  physical  sound  when  occurring  simul- 
taneously with  other  sounds  (owing  to  partial  interferences).  The 
intense  stillness  after  explosions  has  its  counterpart  in  the  '  fatigue ' 


310  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

of  physical  mechanisms.  In  binaural  diplacusis  one  given  pitch  is 
heard  by  the  two  ears  as  two  different  pitches  (generally  less  than 
one  third  of  a  scale-interval  apart) :  but  so  will  one  tone  set  up 
overtones  of  different  pitches  in  as  many  resonant  bodies ;  as  one 
may  note  by  listening  to  several  telephone  transmitters  which 
are  connected  with  one  receiver.  It  may  be  alleged  that  audi- 
tory 'beats'  falsify  the  perception  of  physical  sounds,  but  'beats' 
take  place  in  every  damped  membrane,  and  are  in  human  audi- 
tion nothing  but  the  true  perception  of  what  is  going  on  in  the 
tympanum  of  the  middle  ear.  Likewise,  in  some  measure,  at 
least,  auditory  '  attention  waves '  are  the  true  record  in  conscious- 
ness of  interrupted  function  of  the  tympanum,  owing  to  rhyth- 
mical changes  in  the  latter's  tension,  which  prevent  it  from 
vibrating  responsively  to  some  pitches.  (Similarly  visual  attention 
waves  are  in  part  at  least  due  to  like  rhythmical  changes  in  the 
shape  of  the  lens.) 

The  phenomena  of  dizziness  and  other  peculiar  affections  in  our 
sense  of  orientation  have  found  a  singularly  satisfactory  explana- 
tion in  the  Mach-Breuer  theory,  wholly  in  terms  of  the  inertia 
and  elasticity  of  bodies.  And  a  model  has  been  constructed 
which  manifests  in  the  real  world  many  of  the  very  same  false 
responses  to  changes  of  orientation  that  the  human  being  per- 
ceives by  virtue  of  the  labyrinth  of  his  two  ears.  An  almost  iden- 
tical organ  has  been  found  in  plants.  One  can  only  regret,  in 
this  connection,  that  none  of  our  sense-organs  contain  gyroscopes, 
for  then  there  would  be  material  startling  enough  to  prove  to  the 
satisfaction  of  some  a  dozen  anti-realisms. 

The  case  of  all  the  other  senses  is  exactly  parallel,  and  I  will 
mention  only  the  sadly  overworked  instance  of  the  bowl  of  water 
which  feels  hot  to  one  hand  and  cold  to  the  other,  adding  merely 
that  if  our  learned  opponents  who  find  this  experiment  so  sig- 
nificant will  heat  one  thermometer  and  put  a  second  for  a  time  on 
ice,  the  first  will  record  as  objectively  as  one  pleases  that  the 
bowl  is  really  cold,  while  at  the  same  time  the  second  thermome- 
ter will  record  that  the  bowl  is  really  hot,  In  connection  with 


SECONDARY  QUALITIES  311 

all  of  the  phenomena  so  far  cited,  the  admirable  papers  of  Profes- 
sor Alexander  and  Mr.  Nnnn,  already  referred  to,  will  be  found 
most  illuminating.1 

But  I  have  not  yet  mentioned  hallucinatory  secondary  phe- 
nomena, cases  in  which  a  color  or  sound  comes  in  all  distinct- 
ness to  consciousness,  while  nevertheless  no  such  color  or  clue 
to  it  is  out  there  in  the  physical  world.  In  a  way  positive,  nega- 
tive, and  complementary  after-images  seem  to  belong  here;  and 
yet  they  are  really  cases  like  the  foregoing.  A  positive  after- 
image has  of  course  a  thousand  parallels  in  the  physical  world, 
and  indeed  it  depends  certainly  on  the  nervous  'after-discharge/ 
which  has  been  well  made  out  by  physiology.  The  image  is 
therefore  a  true  perception  of  a  real  process,  which  in  its  turn 
constitutes  a  part  of  the  real  properties  of  a  real  thing  (as  shall  be 
more  amply  brought  out  later).  Likewise  a  negative  after-image 
is  paralleled  by  the  photographic  'negative.'  The  comple- 
mentary after-image  seems  indeed  a  purely  subjective  hallucina- 
tion. The  yellow  candle-flame  is  not  blue  as  it  looks  in  the  after- 
image. Vision  after  santonin  poisoning  shows  objects,  again, 
suffused  with  an  illusory  or  hallucinatory  yellow  cast.  This  latter 
case  is  nearly  paralleled  by  fluorescent  bodies  which  increase  the 
wave-length  of  all  light  that  comes  to  them.  It  is  not  probable 
that  santonin  vision  depends  on  fluorescence  (although  the  visual 
purple  of  the  retina  happens  to  be  a  fluorescent  substance),  but 
it  would  be  explained  in  physical  terms,  and  given  a  real  status 
like  that  of  our  other  instances,  by  any  physiological  process  which 
should  have  the  effect  of  a  yellow  light-screen  interposed  between 
the  object  and  the  sensorium.  Although  the  means  for  this  have 
not  been  discovered,  it  too  clearly  rests  on  a  subtraction  from  con- 
sciousness (as  it  were  a  selective  eye-lid)  to  be  of  interest  in  the 
present  connection. 

The  complementary  after-image  still  looks  more  like  a  subjec- 
tive creation.    Now  it  will  be  recalled  that  Helmholtz  plotted  a 

1  Cf.,  regarding  these  and  similar  cases,  Dewey,  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1911, 
8,  393-397. 


312  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

curve  showing  the  wave-lengths  of  the  complementary  color- 
pairs,1  and  I  have  learned  from  Professor  G.  W.  Pierce  that  when 
the  capacity  of  the  receiving  mast  of  a  wireless  telegraph  system 
is  tuned  to  a  given  length  of  Hertzian  wave,  it  is  ipso  facto 
tuned  to  a  second  wave-length  as  well ;  and  for  each  new  tuning 
it  becomes  sensitive  to  a  similar  pair  of  waves:  that,  further, 
the  curve  of  these  wave-pairs  shows  precisely  such  a  function  as 
the  plot  of  the  complementary  color-pairs.  The  complementary 
or  antagonistic  colors  are  comparable,  then,  not  to  the  octaves 
in  audition  (as  some  serious  but  abortive  speculations  have  tried 
to  show),  but  to  the  complementary  pairs  of  Hertzian  waves. 
Now  it  is  not  known  how  the  cones  of  the  retina  pick  up  light- 
waves and  send  them  on  as  nervous  impulses,  but  it  is  improbable 
that  they  do  this  by  virtue  of  any  photo-chemical  substance  (as 
is  the  case  with  the  rods),  for  in  spite  of  repeated  investigation 
of  the  cones  no  such  substance  has  been  found.  (The  question  of 
'visual  substance/  as  raised  by  Helmholtz  and  Hering,  is  not 
necessarily  involved  here.)  But  it  is  most  probable  for  a  variety 
of  reasons  which  have  been  advanced  by  Meisling,2  that  the  cones 
resonate  to  waves  of  light,  as  in  Helmholtz's  theory  of  audition 
the  radial  fibers  and  organs  of  Corti  are  believed  to  resonate  to 
sound.  Now  light-waves  and  Hertzian  waves  are  closely  related 
physically,  so  that  if  the  view  of  Meisling  is  correct,  —  and  it  is 
not  only  the  most  reasonable  view  so  far  offered,  but  it  is  itself 
well  supported  by  facts,  —  the  complementary  colors  of  vision  are 
nothing  but  a  true  presentation  in  consciousness  of  the  fact  of 
complementary  attunement  of  light-resonators.  This  is  not  an 
assured  fact,  but  it  is  a  view  possessing  too  high  a  degree  of 
probability  to  leave  any  interest  attaching  to  the  case  of  com- 
plementary colors  as  a  special  difficulty  in  the  path  of  realism. 
The  case  of  pure  hallucination  involving  no  peripheral  stimu- 

1  Helmholtz,  H.  von,  Handbuch  der  Physiologischen  Optik,  Hamburg,  2te 
Auflage,  1896,  317. 

1  Meisling,  A.  A.,  Uebcr  die  chcmisch-physikalischen  Grundlagen  des  Sehena. 
Zsch.  /.  Sinnesphysiol.,  1907,  42,  229-249. 


SECONDARY  QUALITIES  313 

lation  whatsoever,  the  case,  that  is,  of  centrally  Induced  sensations 
and  images,  or,  as  Johannes  Miiller  called  them,  "fantastical 
visual  phenomena,"  is  more  unmistakably  to  our  purpose.  And 
I  confess  that  this  is  the  first  of  the  arguments  allotted  to  me  in 
which  I  can  see  enough  plausibility  to  enable  me  to  meet  the  adver- 
sary with  either  amiability  or  patience.  I  heartily  grant  the  pro- 
priety of  our  opponent's  question,  How  can  realism  pretend 
to  assert  the  reality  of  the  color,  sound,  and  perhaps  tactile  or 
olfactory  sensations  which  are  vividly  present  in  the  dreams  of  a 
person  sleeping,  it  may  be,  in  a  box  no  bigger  than  his  coffin  ?  The 
case  has  still  two  aspects :  first,  how  can  these  purely  hallucinatory 
secondary  qualities  have,  even  in  themselves  alone,  any  sort  of 
being  other  than  a  subjective  and  mental  being?  Second,  the 
argument  already  twice  referred  to,  how  can  they  pretend  to 
assert  themselves  to  be,  or  how  can  the  realist  pretend  to  assert 
them  to  be  the  real  object  ? 

The  former  difficulty  first.  It  must  have  occurred  even  to  the 
idealist,  in  a  ruminative  moment,  what  a  singular  thing  that 
cleavage  in  our  universe,  the  sharp  division  between  primary  and 
secondary  qualities  that  is  ordinarily  attributed  to  Locke,  after 
all  is.  Whether  one  views  our  'universe'  as  a  material  system, 
a  scheme  of  relations,  a  subjective  realm,  an  'Absolute'  sys- 
tem, or  whatsoever,  one  is  ever  confronted  by  the  strange  apart- 
ness of  the  secondary  from  the  primary  qualities,  a  cleft  that  is 
bridged  only  by  the  bare  one-to-one  correlation  of  some  of  the 
colors,  sounds,  and  so  forth  with  certain  vibratory  wave  magni- 
tudes found  in  the  primary  system.  Since  this  is  a  bare  one- 
to-one  relation,  not  even  for  instance  admitted  to  be  a  true  causal 
relation,  the  case  presents  even  to  the  thought  of  our  own  day 
as  clean  and  gratuitous  a  'preestablished  harmony'  as  was  ever 
dreamt  of  by  Leibnitz.  This  cleavage  and  the  mystery  of  error 
constitute,  I  take  it,  the  chief  empirical  motives  (as  opposed, 
say,  to  temperamental  motives)  which  have  led  thinking  men 
into  some  form  of  subjectivism.  Since,  however,  subjectivism 
by  no  means  clears  up  this  inscrutable  correlation,  it  remains  to 


314  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

me  personally  a  mystery  that,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  explanation 
has  been  attempted  of  this  harmonious  accident  —  so  uniform 
and  inveterate.  But  is  this  fixed  correlation  a  fixed  accident? 
This  is  a  question  which  must  be  answered  on  solely  empirical 
grounds,  if  our  adversary  grants  that  term  to  have  any  meaning, 
and  without  regard  to  realistic  or  anti-realistic  prepossessions. 
For  the  empirical  psychologist  the  unique  and  isolated  position 
of  secondary  qualities  is  enunciated  in  Johannes  Miiller's  doc- 
trine of  the  specific  energy  of  nerves,  for  which  Miiller  himself 
gave  various  formulations,  one  of  which  is  substantially  the  theory 
generally  believed  to-day.  The  germ  of  the  doctrine  descends 
to  us  from  Locke  through  Hume  to  Kant,  for  it  was  Kant's  epis- 
temology  that  Miiller,  by  his  theory,  aimed  to  exhibit  in  concrete 
operation.  (He  hoped  thus  to  confirm  Kantian  metaphysic,  and 
although  the  work  turned  out,  unconsciously  to  Miiller,  a  carica- 
ture, we  still  note  among  idealists  a  real  affection  for  the  'Son- 
derstellung  der  sekundaren  Qualitaten.')  Nevertheless,  explicitly 
Miiller  proceeded  empirically,  and  based  his  theory  on  two  groups 
of  phenomena;  the  'fantastical  visual  phenomena,'  or  in  general 
the  central  excitation  of  mental  processes;  and  the  fact  that 
some  nerves  when  stimulated  by  some  other  than  their  normal 
stimulus  still  respond  by  yielding  the  same  sensation  as  when 
exposed  to  their  normal  or  'adequate'  stimulus.  Thus,  it  was 
believed  that  a  surgical  severing  of  the  optic  nerve  produced  a 
confusedly  brilliant  burst  of  light  and  color  sensations.  Clearly 
the  world  outside  the  body  contained  only  primary  qualities  and, 
more  pertinently,  vibration-rates,  while  the  secondary  qualities 
were  certainly  found  only  in  the  nervous  system  and  undoubtedly 
(but  this  was  pure  assumption  in  the  supposed  Kantian  interest) 
only  in  the  mind.  And  it  was  a  specific  energy  of  nerve  fiber 
'or'  brain  center  (the  latter  being  the  modern  view),  that,  al- 
though having  nothing  about  it  that  resembled  a  secondary 
quality,  had  the  power  of  arousing  the  secondary  qualities  in  the 
mind.  Thus  the  specific  energies  were  the  physiological  counter- 
part of  a  Kantian  category. 


SPECIFIC   ENERGIES  315 

But  obviously  the  specific  energy  of  the  optic  nerve  must  differ 
from  that  of  the  acoustic  nerve  in  order  to  account  for  the  differ- 
ent effects  of  the  two  on  the  mind.  Miiller  spoke  somewhat 
roughly  of  specific  energies,  qualitatively1  differing,  for  each  of 
the  several  senses.  The  assumption  was  later  made  by  Helm- 
holtz,  and  not  without  reason,  of  a  specifically  different  energy 
not  merely  for  the  modes  of  light,  sound,  heat,  and  so  forth,  but 
for  many  of  the  qualitative  differences  within  these  modes  as  well. 
Thus  we  have  the  sundering  of  primary  and  secondary  qualities 
with  the  harmonious  accident  of  their  correlation,  restated  in  the 
terms  of  mind  and  body  or  rather  of  mind  and  the  cortical  cells 
of  the  cerebrum,  with  nothing  done  to  explain  the  steady  correla- 
tional accident.  (And  as  for  the  Kantians,  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
they  can  feel  grateful  to  Johannes  Miiller  for  exhibiting  so  defi- 
nitely the  slender  cortical  threads  by  which  the  mind  is  held  in 
touch  with  a  contrastingly  non-mental  world,  even  though  the 
latter  was  devoid  of  secondary  qualities.) 

The  point  about  this  theory  which  interests  us  now  is  that  nerve 
physiology  has  not  been  able  to  discover  any  trace  of  specific 
nerve-energies.2  All  nervous  impulses  seem  to  be  of  quite  the 
same  '  qualitative '  order,  differing  only  in  intensity :  sensory  im- 
pulses are  even  not  different  from  motor  impulses.  Yet  the 
question  remains,  —  How  can  the  mind  (to  continue  Miiller's  con- 
ception of  the  case)  be  affected  to  different  modes  of  sensation  by 
nervous  impulses  which  are  all  qualitatively  alike?  And  it  is  a 
question  not  merely  of  understanding  the  cases  of  centrally  in- 
duced hallucinations  and  of  normal  sensations  caused  by  abnormal, 
'inadequate,'  stimulation,  but  a  question  of  still  broader  import, 
—  How  can  any  physical  stimuli  whatsoever,  whether  normal 

1  Miiller  uses  the  term  here  with  no  reference  to  '  secondary  qualities,'  but 
merely  as  one  might  loosely  speak  of  a  '  qualitative  chemical  process.' 

*  The  unsuccessful  attempts  in  this  direction,  notably  by  Hering,  have  chiefly 
been  actuated  by  the  theoretical  needs  of  sense-psychology.  Cf.  Boruttau,  H., 
Alte  und  neue  Vorstellungen  iiber  das  Wesen  der  Nervenleitung.  Zsch.  f.  aLlg. 
Phyaiol.  (Verworn's),  1902,  1,  Referatenabteilung,  1  (especially  10-11).  Hering, 
E.,  Zur  Theorie  der  Nerventhatigkeit,  Leipzig,  1899  (especially  8,  10). 


316  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

or  abnormal,  produce  different  qualitative  sensations  when  the 
differences  between  the  stimuli,  the  differences  of  wave-length 
or  vibration-rate,  are  merged  and  lost  on  their  way  to  the  brain 
in  nervous  impulses  which  appear  to  be  all  alike. 

The  readiest  answer  should  seem  to  be  that  the  differences  re- 
quired are  not  differences  in  impulse  but  in  nerve-fibril :  each  nerve 
fibril  different  from  every  other  might,  whenever  excited,  give  the 
cue  to  the  mind  for  one  specific  secondary  quality.  But  no  such 
differences  between  nerve  fibrils  have  ever  been  discovered ;  any 
more  than  between  nerve  impulses.1  Might  then  the  differences 
be  in  the  cortical  cells  at  which  the  fibrils  terminate?  This  has 
been  somewhat  investigated  and  a  very  slight  difference  in  the 
chemical  composition  of  different  lobes  of  the  brain  found.  Even 
this  has  not  been  confirmed,  and  I  believe  that  no  investigator 
has  ever  claimed  to  find  chemical,  histological,  or  other  differen- 
tiations between  homologous  cells  of  one  lobe ;  as  our  assumption 
requires.  (Differences  between  the  cells  of  different  cortical 
layers  will  not  serve  our  purposes,  since  these  differences  between 
layers  extend  practically  unmodified  over  the  whole  cortex.)  Pro- 
fessors Sherrington 2  and  McDougall 3  have  shown  that  not  the 
cell-bodies  but  the  synapses  between  neurones  are  in  other  respects 
(such  as  duration  and  fatigue  phenomena)  significant  for  conscious- 
ness; but  here  again  no  differences  between  synapses  even  re- 
motely approximating  what  we  require  have  been  adduced.  The 
only  course  remaining  is  that  taken  by  Professor  Mtinsterberg 
in  his  'action  theory,' 4  where  the  correlation  between  neural  im- 
pulse and  secondary  quality  in  the  mind  is  conceived  as  a  bare 

1  This  distinction  is  at  best  a  somewhat  academic  one,  since  it  is  hardly  conceiv- 
able that  any  significant  differences  in  nerve-fibrils  should  not  bring  in  their  train 
phenomena  that  would  become  manifest  in  the  experimental  study  of  the  nerve- 
impulse. 

1  Sherrington,  C.  S.,  The  Integrative  Action  of  the  Nervous  System.  New  York, 
1906,  14  ff.  Cf.,  however,  earlier  writers  such  as  Goldscheider,  A.,  Die  Bedeutung 
der  Reize  im  Lichte  der  Neuronlehre.  Leipzig,  1898,  I. 

1  McDougall,  W.,  Physiological  Psychology,  London,  1905,  30-33. 

4  Milnsterberg,  H.,  GrundzUge  der  Psychologic,  Leipzig,  1900, 1, 15. 


SPECIFIC  ENERGIES  317 

one-to-one  correlation,  no  other  differentiation  in  the  nervous  sub- 
stratum being  suggested  than  one  of  spatial  position.  And  this 
view  again  brings  us  back  to  the  unexplained  preestablished  har- 
mony ;  and  to  the  mind  of  a  realist,  at  least,  nature  abhors  a  pre- 
established  harmony.  But  another  and  strictly  empirical  reason 
makes  impossible  the  assumption  which  we  have  just  considered. 
In  the  words  of  the  late  Professor  Nagel,1  "Unquestionably  an  hy- 
pothesis which  should  permit  us  to  ascribe  to  individual  nerve- 
fibers  a  single  qualitatively  determined  and  unvarying  mode 
of  excitation  (Erregungsart,  and  the  context  shows  that  he  is 
referring  not  to  the  form  of  stimulation,  but  to  the  nature  of  the 
sensational  response)  would  be  by  far  more  satisfactory,  and  would 
stand  in  closer  accord  with  other  investigations.  The  special 
investigations  in  sense  physiology,  however,  are  not  at  present 
favorable  to  such  an  assumption."  The  evidence  is  as  follows. 
Miiller  left  his  theory  in  a  crude  form,  inasmuch  as  he  thought  of 
a  'specific  energy'  for  each  'sense'  —  sight,  hearing,  and  so 
forth;  but  each  'sense'  gives  us  several  qualities  (as  four  for 
taste,  at  least  several  thousand  for  hearing,  and  an  indefinitely 
large  number  each  for  sight  and  smell) ;  and  every  argument  that 
speaks  for  specific  energy  at  all  for  the  several  sensory  modes, 
speaks  just  as  imperatively  for  a  separate  energy  for  each  quality 
within  the  mode.  This  '  undoubtedly  influenced  Helmholtz,  in 
his  theory  of  audition,  to  assign  to  each  fibril  of  (the  cochlear 
branch  of)  the  eighth  nerve,  the  work  of  transmitting  a  separate 
auditory  sensation  of  pitch.  The  fact  that  these  fibrils  are  con- 
nected serially  with  the  graded  series  of  organs  of  Corti  made  the 

1  Nagel,  W.  A.,  Die  Lehre  von  den  spezifischen  Sinnesenergien.  Handbuch  der 
Physiologic  des  Menschen,  Braunschweig,  1904,  3,  15.  Professor  Nagel  was  not 
optimistic,  indeed,  about  several  of  the  reputed  facts  on  which  Miiller  based  his 
theory.  "So  far  as  I  know  we  have  still  no  proof  that  mechanical  or  electrical 
stimulations  of  the  optic  nerve-trunk  produce  sensations  of  light"  (7).  And 
again,  "  The  most  clean-cut  (eleganteste)  and  in  fact  the  only  really  clear  confirma- 
tion of  Muller's  law  (regarding  the  results  in  sensation  of  '  inadequate '  stimula- 
tion of  nerve-fibers)  is  the  already  mentioned  experiment  on  the  chorda  tympani 
of  the  exposed  middle  ear ;  mechanical,  chemical,  and  electrical  stimulation  of  the 
central  end  of  the  severed  nerve  does  produce  a  sensation  of  taste  "  (8). 


318  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

theory  very  plausible.  Helmholtz  was  similarly  influenced  (al- 
though the  evidence  is  here  less  obvious)  in  his  assumption  of 
three  fundamental  qualities  of  vision.  Now  the  extension  of  the 
theory  of  specific  energies  to  the  sensory  qualities,  as  required  if 
the  theory  is  to  explain  the  facts  which  it  undertakes  to  explain, 
has  been  thoroughly  unsuccessful,  and  has  been  put  by  recent 
investigations  quite  out  of  question.1 

In  the  first  place  the  theory  never  has,  in  spite  of  several  efforts, 
been  extended  with  any  degree  of  completeness  to  the  qualities. 
The  greatest  success  was  attained  in  Helmholtz's  theory  of  audi- 
tion. This  theory  conceives  the  series  of  pitches  as  the  quali- 
tative auditory  series  (of  which  the  justice  has  been  disputed), 
shows  the  different  pitches  to  be  carried  to  the  brain  by  different 
nerve-fibrils :  and  in  spite  of  some  doubts  on  the  score  of  differ- 
ence- and  summation-tones  was  on  the  whole  a  credible  theory. 
The  theory  still  meets  with  several  difficulties,  nevertheless,  a 
rather  serious  one  being  the  difficulty  of  conceiving  how  the  radial 
fibers  with  their  almost  microscopic  dimensions  can  'resonate' 
to  so  great  a  range  of  pitches  as  are  included  in  the  audible  range 
of  hearing,  and  specially  how  such  resonance  is  possible  between 
the  little  fibers  and  the  lower  audible  wave-lengths  which  are 
little  short  of  sixty-four  feet.  Furthermore  these  radial  fibres 
are  transversely  bound  together,  so  that  any  true  resonance  must 
be  made  more  difficult,  and  a  specific  resonance  of  individual 
fibers  to  respective  individual  tones  seems  quite  out  of  question. 
Were  this  not  the  case,  it  is  estimated  that  the  radial  fibers  would 
be  numerous  enough  to  correspond  to  the  number  of  distinct  au- 
dible pitches  if  this  latter  is  taken  as  the  same  as  the  number  of 
successive  pitch  differences  discriminable  in  an  ascending  or  de- 
scending continuous  series  of  tones.  In  fact,  however,  the  se- 
ries of  pitch  sensations  is  continuous,  and  so  includes  infinitely 
more  pitches  than  are  brought  out  in  the  step-wise  series  yielded 

1  Nagel,  W.  A.,  op.  cit.,  14.  Professor  Nagel's  entire  essay  is  of  interest  in  thia 
connection.  The  history  of  Miiller's  theory  is  ably  treated  by  Weinmann,  R.,  Die 
Lehre  von  den  spczinschen  Enorgien,  Hamburg,  1895. 


SPECIFIC  ENERGIES  319 

by  the  discrimination  experiment.  Helmholtz  himself  admitted,  if 
I  recall  aright,  that  many  intermediate  pitches  must  be  accounted 
for  by  the  simultaneous  activity  of  adjacent  organs  of  Corti 
excited  severally  in  differing  degrees  of  intensity.  This  rather 
stretches  a  point  in  order  to  prop  up  the  general  theory  of  a  nerve- 
fibril  to  a  sensory  quality :  and  yet  one  is  tempted  to  let  it  pass, 
owing  to  the  close  resemblance  between  near-lying  pitches. 

But  in  vision  the  case  is  less  favorable.  The  color  series  is  also  a 
continuous  one,  and  since  on  the  red-green  zone  of  the  normal 
retina  (a  very  considerable  area)  every  hue  can  be  perceived  at 
every  point,  it  was  from  the  outset  out  of  question  to  look  for, 
or  to  assume,  a  cable  of  nerve-fibrils  going  to  every  point  and  large 
enough  to  provide  a  separate  fibril  for  each  of  the  discriminable 
color  differences,  to  say  nothing  of  the  actually  continuous 
series  of  such  differences.  So  here  Helmholtz  stretched  still  fur- 
ther (and  very  far)  the  point  which  just  now  we  let  pass.  He  as- 
sumed, in  effect,  three  fibrils  going  to  what  is  practically  each 
point  of  the  red-green  zone,  and  assumed  one  of  the  three  colors 
red,  green,  and  blue  to  be  aroused  in  the  mind  by  activity  of  one 
or  other  of  the  three  fibrils.  Intermediate  colors,  as  in  the  du- 
bious point  conceded  in  the  case  of  audition,  were  aroused  in  the 
mind  by  the  simultaneous  excitation  in  different  relative  amounts 
of  two  or  even  three  of  the  fibrils.  Thus  yellow,  in  which  few 
persons  recognize  any  resemblance  to  either  red  or  green,  must 
nevertheless  be  understood  as  the  mental  result  of  simultaneous 
and  equal  excitations  of  red  and  green  fibrils :  and  white,  which 
resembles  no  color,  as  the  mental  result  of  equal  excitations  of 
red,  green,  and  blue  fibrils  together.  Now  here  surely  the  matter 
has  been  stretched  too  far,  for  if  yellow  and  white  are  not  sufficiently 
distinct  qualities  to  have  special  fibrils  assigned  them,  then  the 
theory  of  a  nerve-fibril  to  a  sensory  quality  has  simply  failed. 
The  case  is  furthermore  worse  than  in  audition,  for  the  mind  must 
be  inexplicably  aroused  to  perceive  different  qualities  on  the  ex- 
citation of  different  fibrils,  and  intermediate  qualities  according 
to  relative  and  exactly  discriminated  quantities  of  excitation; 


320  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

and  now,  per  contra,  it  must  be  aroused  to  apprehend  the  same 
quality  on  the  excitation  of  several  thousand  different  red,  or 
green,  or  blue  fibrils.  When  the  point  is  stretched  so  far,  the 
principle  of  a  nerve-fibril  to  a  quality  is  squeezed  to  vanishing; 
it  is  lost. 

Moreover,  continuous  qualitative  series  quite  bridge  in  many 
cases  the  gaps  which  the  older  psychology  rather  jauntily  assumed 
to  exist  between  the  'five  senses.'  There  are  innumerable  sen- 
sations which  are  aroused  by  the  simultaneous  excitation  of 
taste  and  smell  fibrils ;  indeed,  all  but  four  of  the  so-called  tastes 
are  due  to  the  cooperation  of  olfactory  excitations,  and  yet  it 
is  notorious  that  none  but  the  trained,  and  few  of  these,  can  men- 
tally resolve  these  sensations  into  taste  plus  smell.  For  nearly 
every  one  they  are  as  unanalyzable  as  is  white  unanalyzable  into 
red,  green,  and  blue.  Again  the  variety  of  tastes  is  greatly  in- 
creased by  the  (mentally)  unsuspected  assistance  of  the  touch 
sense.  The  senses  of  touch,  pain,  warmth,  and  cold  (known  to 
have  separate  end-organs)  are  inextricably  co-involved  in  the 
production  of  a  vast  variety  of  'dermal'  sensations;  while,  ac- 
cording to  Professor  von  Frey,  the  sensation  of  heat  is  due  to  the 
simultaneous  action  of  organs  which  if  excited  severally  would 
yield  sensations  of  warmth  and  cold.  The  number  of  instances 
could  be  increased  to  any  length,  but  I  will  further  mention  but 
one  sensation  which  I  may  call  the  still,  small  voice  of  psychol- 
ogy :  the  sensation  which  has  no  namable  quality.  It  is  familiar, 
I  think,  to  every  trained  introspector,  and  certainly  to  every  ob- 
servant one;  one  seeks  in  vain  to  assign  it  to  any  of  the  famil- 
iar senses,  and  it  is  distinctly  not  visceral  or  otherwise  of  a 
proprio-ceptive  order.  Thus  I  have  several  times  been  as  assured 
as  the  nature  of  the  case  allowed,  that  the  stimulation  which 
yielded  the  experience  was  either  visual  or  auditory,  and  still  I 
was  quite  unable  to  recognize  the  result  in  consciousness  as  either 
a  color  or  a  sound ;  yet  the  sensation  was  moderately  intense  and 
it  held  its  own  well  under  the  process  of  introspection.  By  way  of 
introspective  description  I  can  only  say  that  its  quality  suggests 


QUALITATIVE  SERIES  321 

something  primal  and  unelaborated.  I  mention  this  at  some 
length  because  it  will  interest  us  later :  and  also  because  it  is  so 
little  suggestive  of  a  rough  and  ready  scheme  of  specific  energies. 

And  thus  it  is  that  the  theory  of  specific  energies  of  nerve, 
twist  and  refine  it  as  one  will,  encounters  so  many  difficulties  and 
ends  up  with  such  a  bland  profession  of  ignorance,  that  one  must 
go  back,  and  indeed  for  economy  of  thought  much  prefers  to  go 
back,  to  the  original  facts,  perplexing  as  they  are.  The  considera- 
tions which  I  shall  now  adduce  seem  to  me  to  plunge  the  merci- 
ful bodkin  into  the  Miillerian  theory  and  also  to  throw  a  flood  of 
light  on  the  seemingly  baffling  facts. 

If  nerve  physiologists  have  been  unable,  for  the  support  of 
Miiller's  theory,  to  discover  anything  like  a  qualitative  difference 
among  nervous  impulses,  nor  yet  suitable  chemical  or  histologi- 
cal  differences  among  cortical  cells  and  synapses,  certain  recent 
discoveries  have  shown  something  about  the  nervous  impulse 
which  both  does  away  with  old  conceptions  and  introduces  rather 
extraordinary  new  ones.  That  something  is,  that  the  nervous 
impulse,  and  particularly  the  sensory  nervous  impulse,  presents 
periodic  fluctuations  of  a  frequency  vastly  higher  than  was  hitherto 
suspected.  In  the  words  of  Professor  Sherrington,1  "The  number 
of  separable  excitatory  states  (impulses)  engendered  in  a  nerve- 
trunk  by  serially  repeated  stimuli  corresponds  closely  with  the 
stimuli  in  number  and  rhythm.  Whether  the  stimuli  follow  each 
other  once  per  second  or  five  hundred  times  per  second,  the  ner- 
vous responses  follow  the  rhythm  of  stimulation.  Using  contrac- 
tion of  skeletal  muscle  as  index  of  the  response  the  correspondence 
at  rhythms  above  thirty  per  second  becomes  difficult  to  trace, 
because  the  mechanical  effects  tend  at  rates  beyond  that  to  fuse 
indistinguishably.  The  electrical  responses  of  the  muscle  can 
with  ease  be  observed  isolatedly  up  to  faster  rates :  their  rhythm 
is  found  to  agree  with  that  of  stimulation:  thus  at  eighty  per 
second  their  responses  are  eighty  per  second.  If  the  muscle  note 
be  accepted  as  an  indication  of  the  respbnse  of  the  muscle,  its  pitch 

1  Op.  tit.,  42-43. 

T 


322  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

follows  pari  passu  the  rate  of  stimulation  of  the  nerve  through  a 
still  greater  range."  "The  refractory  period  in  nerve-trunk  con- 
duction seems  to  last  not  longer  than  lo-."  The  last  sentence  is 
equivalent  to  the  statement  that  the  periodicity  of  the  nerve  im- 
pulse can  go  as  high  as  one  thousand  per  second;  and  it  leaves 
the  question  whether  the  frequency  does  not  go  higher,  unpreju- 
diced, for  further  investigation.  Almost  all  of  the  recent  work  on 
axis-cylinder  conduction,  muscle-tone,  tetanus,  'Treppe,'  and  re- 
fractory phase  gives  indication  of  a  similar  oscillation  of  the 
nervous  impulse  at  rates  quite  unsuspected  by  physiologists  of 
an  earlier  day.1  Thus,  for  instance,  Professor  Piper  finds  that  in 
voluntary  contraction  (under  virtually  normal  conditions,  then) 
the  flexor  muscle  of  the  lower  arm  receives  fifty  nervous  impulses 
per  second.2  The  reason  why  this  discovery  has  been  reserved 
until  so  recent  a  date  is  of  the  simplest,  and  is  the  one  hinted  at 
by  Dr.  Sherrington  in  the  passage  just  quoted :  the  mechanical 
inertia  of  the  recording  instruments  hitherto  used  in  studying  the 
nervous  impulse  has  been  such  as  to  'fuse  indistinguishably ' 
anything  but  slow  fluctuations  of  the  nerve-current  intensity. 
But  the  mass  and  variety  of  evidence  already  on  hand,  together 
with  its  unquestioned  authority,  make  it  certain  that  as  the  use 
of  finer  electrical  recording  instruments  progresses  (particularly  the 
oscillograph,  which  is  a  relatively  new  instrument  in  physiological 
laboratories),  we  shall  become  acquainted  with  a  large  field  of 
phenomena  relating  to  high  frequencies  of  the  nervous  impulse. 

Now,  as  has  so  often  happened,  evidence  of  the  same  fundamental 
fact  has  been  simultaneously  accumulating  from  another  source, 
that  of  specifically  sense  physiology  or  psychology.  In  1907  Lord 
Rayleigh 3  published  a  paper  in  which  he  showed  conclusively 

1 1  confess  to  being  so  far  baffled  in  my  search  for  the  earliest  experiments  in 
this  line.  It  would  be  interesting  to  be  able  to  assign  the  historical  priority  in  what 
is  after  all  a  profound  modification  of  the  earlier  conception  of  the  "  nervous  wave  " 
of,  say,  a  second's  duration  or  over.  Cf.  Bering,  E.,  op.  cit.,  29. 

*  Piper,  H.,  Arch.  f.  d.  ges.  Physiol.  (Pflueger's),  1907,  119,  301;  also  ibid.. 
1909,  129,  180. 

»  Rayleigh,  Phil.  Mag.,  1907,  Sixth  Series,  13,  214. 


NEURAL  PERIODICITIES  323 

that  sounds  of  lower  pitch  than  128  d.v.  per  second,  at  least, 
(and  perhaps  of  pitch  as  high  as  512  d.v.)  could  not  be  localized 
by  means  of  differences  between  their  heard  intensities ;  but  that 
they  could  be  and  were  localized  on  the  basis  of  their  relative  phases 
as  they  entered  the  two  ears.  Lord  Rayleigh  adds,  "It  seems  no 
longer  possible  to  hold  that  the  vibratory  character  of  sound 
terminates  at  the  outer  ends  of  the  nerves  along  which  the 
communication  with  the  brain  is  established.  On  the  contrary, 
the  processes  in  the  nerve  must  themselves  be  vibratory,  not 
of  course  in  the  gross  mechanical  sense,  but  with  preservation 
of  the  period  and  retaining  the  characteristic  of  phase  —  a  view 
advocated  by  Rutherford,  in  opposition  to  Helmholtz,  as  long  ago 
as  1886"  (loc.  tit.,  pp.  224-225).  Now  earlier,  but  unfortunately 
either  not  published  or  not  adequately  emphasized  and  there- 
fore unnoticed,  work  had  already  been  done  which  proved  the 
importance  of  phase-differences  in  the  localization  of  sound,  by 
Sylvanus  Thompson,1  Professor  L.  T.  More,2  and  Mr..  M.  Green- 
wood ; 3  and  the  fact  has  received  further  confirmation  from  sub- 
sequent experiments  of  Lord  Rayleigh,4  Professors  Myers  and 
Wilson,5  Mr.  Bowlker,6  and  Professor  More.7  The  last  named 
author  finds  that  phase-differences  are  effective  up  to  pitches  in 
the  vicinity  of  1024  d.v.  (loc.  tit.,  p.  314).  Professors  Myers  and 
Wilson  have  tried  to  subsume  the  new  facts  under  the  old  inten- 
sity-ratio theory,  by  alleging  that  phase  is  operative  only  as  it 
is  correlated  with  intensity,  but  their  explanation  is  too  patently 
a  case  of  ingenuity  expended  to  save  a  preconception.  If  the 
nerve-impulse  were  known  not  to  show  phases  of  the  periods 
here  involved,  one  would  perhaps  let  the  explanation  in  terms  of 

1  Referred  to,  but  place  of  publication  not  given,  by  Mr.   Greenwood.     (Pro- 
fessor Silvanus  P.  Thompson  intended  ?) 

1  More,  L.  T.,  Phil.  Mag.,  1907,  Sixth  Series,  13,  452. 

1  Greenwood,  M.,  Physiology  of  the  Special  Senses,  London,  1910,  83. 

4  Rayleigh,  Phil.  Mag.,  1907,  Sixth  Series,  13,  316;  and  1907,  S.  S.,  14,  596. 

1  Myers,  C.  S.,  and  Wilson,  H.  A.,  Brit.  J.  of  Psychol.,  1908,  2,  363. 

•  Bowlker,  T.  J.,  Phil.  Mag.,  1908,  Sixth  Series,  15,  318. 

»  More,  L.  T.,  ibid.,  1909,  S.  S.  18,  308. 


324  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

the  intensity-ratio  theory  stand,  however  improbable.  Since, 
however,  the  very  periodicities  which  are  prerequisite  have  been 
independently  proved  to  exist,  the  view  of  Lord  Rayleigh  and 
Professor  More  is  altogether  the  natural  one.  Professor  More 
pertinently  says  (loc.  ciL,  p.  319),  "The  only  objection  to  the 
idea  that  the  ear  is  capable  of  detecting  the  phase  of  a  sound 
or  at  least  the  difference  in  the  phase  of  two  sounds,  is  that  it  is 
difficult  to  reconcile  with  our  theories  of  audition." 

But  the  experiment  showing  that  phase-differences  govern  the 
localization  of  the  lower  pitches  is  one  in  which  no  'hypothesis' 
and  indeed  very  little  deduction  has  entered,  whereas  the  Helm- 
holtz  theory  of  audition  (to  which  Professor  More  must  mainly 
if  not  exclusively  have  referred)  involves  a  grave  hypothesis, 
in  the  much-disputed  resonance  assumption,  and  was  further- 
more framed  not  a  little  in  the  interests  of  Miiller's  'specific 
energies,' l  —  a  theory  which  we  have  already  seen  to  be  value- 
less. I  say  that  it  is  the  Helmholtz  theory  to  which  Professor 
More  must  have  referred,  because  of  the  three  other  prominent 
theories,  Ewald's  in  no  sense  depends  on  the  Miillerian  tradition, 
and  Rutherford's  and  Meyer's  are  irreconcilable  with  that  tradition. 
And  the  new  facts  regarding  auditory  phase  are  not  difficult  to  rec- 
oncile'with  these  theories.  Indeed,  Dr.  Rutherford's  theory  consists 
in  little  else  than  an  interesting,  and  to  my  mind  valid,  protest 
against  specific  energies,  and  in  favor  of  the  view  that  sensory 
qualities  are  conveyed  to  the  sensorium  by  vibratory  nerve-im- 
pulses whose  rates  are  closely  related  to  those  of  the  impinging 
physical  stimuli.  The  considerations  adduced  by  either  Dr.  Ruth- 
erford or  Professor  Ewald  are  hardly  complete  enough  to  be  called 
a  'theory'  of  audition;  those  of  Professor  Max  Meyer  better  de- 
serve the  title.  This  investigator  has  offered  a  theory  which  takes 
into  account  and  plausibly  explains  all  the  important  peculiarities 
of  audition  (specially  some  of  those  which  Helmholtz  found 
most  difficult),  except  the  phenomenon  of  pitch  ('quality'), 
which  generally  is  the  first  point  that  a  psychological  theory 

1  Cf.  Ebbinghaus,  H.,  Grundziige  der  Psychologic,  Leipzig,  1905,  335. 


NEURAL  PERIODICITIES  325 

undertakes  to  explain.  I  cannot  discover  that  Professor  Meyer 
has  once  made  explicit  mention  of  pitch,  or  how  he  understands 
it  to  be  transmitted  to  the  brain.  And  yet  his  theory  is  posi- 
tive on  this  point ;  what  it  requires  is  to  suppose  that  pitch  is 
transmitted  not  by  specifically  different  nerve-fibrils  (as  in 
the  Muller-Helmholtz  conception),  but  by  nerve-impulses,  along 
any  or  all  fibrils,  which  consist  of  periodic  vibrations  identical 
in  rate  with  the  vibrations  of  the  outer  sound  stimulus.  I 
have  never  understood  what  I  must  call  Professor  Meyer's  mys- 
terious reticence  on  this  point ;  unless,  indeed,  one  may  suppose 
that,  unaware  of  the  arguments  in  his  favor  adduced  by  Dr. 
Rutherford  and  many  other  physiologists,  he  has  hesitated  to 
give  explicit  prominence  to  a  feature  of  his  theory  which  so  widely 
departs  from  the  Mtillerian  tradition.  Indeed,  the  views  of  Meyer 
and  Rutherford  are  not  rival,  but  complementary  and  entirely  har- 
monious theories.  Together  they  form  a  compact,  complete,  and 
very  promising  theory  of  audition ;  which,  for  that  matter,  would 
seem  in  no  wise  to  jar  with  the  fragmentary  and  somewhat  whim- 
sical speculations  of  Professor  Ewald,  although  I  can  assign  no 
immense  value  to  these  latter.  In  short,  I  have  no  hesitation  in 
affirming  that  what  we  may  call  the  Rutherford-Meyer  theory  is 
an  adequate  theory  of  audition,  and  that  in  view  of  recent  dis- 
coveries in  nerve  physiology,  it  has  the  distinct  advantage  over 
the  theory  of  Helmholtz.  I  could  substantiate  this  conclusion 
in  much  greater  detail,  but  in  our  present  connection  I  have 
wished  only  to  show  that  all  considerations  require  us  to  aban- 
don 'specific  energies/  l  that  the  facts  of  nerve  physiology  point 
unmistakably  to  the  view  that  the  quality  of  sensations  is  trans- 
mitted to  the  brain  by  vibratory  nerve-impulses,  that  certain 
facts  of  sense  psychology  prove  this  in  the  field  of  audition,  and 
further  that  here  the  vibration-rate  corresponds  to  that  of  the 

1  It  is  interesting  that  in  1899  Hering  in  his  defense  (loc.  cit.,  8)  of  "  qualitative 
specific  energies,"  cites  even  Helmholtz  as  an  opponent  of  them.  In  other  words, 
Helmholtz  believed  that  the  specific  energies  were  to  be  interpreted  in  some  quanti- 
tative fashion,  possibly  in  terms  of  nervous  vibrations  (ibid.,  29). 


326  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

outer  sound  stimulus,  and  lastly  that  this  is  not  "difficult  to  recon- 
cile with  our  theories  of  audition." 

How  may  such  a  view,  now,  fare  in  the  field  of  vision  ?  —  the 
only  other  sense  which  has  been  at  all  exhaustively  investigated. 
The  reply  is  that  it  fares  very  well.  In  a  paper  already  re- 
ferred to  Mr.  Meisling  has  presented  very  urgently  the  following 
considerations  regarding  color  (cone)  vision.  Heat,  light,  and 
Hertzian  waves  belong  to  the  same  physical  order,  all  being  elec- 
tro-magnetic vibrations  and  differing  in  the  one  essential  of  wave- 
length or  rate.  These  waves  can  and  do  affect  substances  photo- 
chemically,  as  they,  have  hitherto  been  conceived  to  affect  the 
rods  and  cones  of  the  retina;  that  is,  by  means  of  so-called  visual 
substances.  But  there  must  be  a  photo-chemical  substance  to 
be  affected.  In  the  case  of  the  rods  such  a  substance  is  found  in 
the  visual  purple,  and  the  conscious  result  is  white  or  gray  sensa- 
tion. In  the  cones  no  photo-chemical  substance  has  been  demon- 
strated, although  the  purple  of  the  rods  was  discovered  relatively 
early  (by  Boll  in  1876),  and  three  or  more  visual  substances  have 
eagerly  been  looked  for  in  the  cones.  Now  the  'visual  substances' 
were  always  purely  hypothetical  in  our  color  theories,  and  were 
conceived  merely  by  analogy  with  the  pigmented  cells  of  rudi- 
mentary vertebrate  eyes  and  with  the  visual  purples  of  the  rods 
in  vertebrates.  This  analogy  was  not  unreasonable,  but  it  is 
unreasonable  to  cling  to  it  when  almost  a  half  century  of  investi- 
gation has  failed  to  bear  it  out,  by  demonstrating  not  even  one  of 
the  supposedly  requisite  photo-chemical  substances.  Now  the 
cones  need  not  be  conceived  of  as  actinometers ;  they  may  be 
thermometers  (bolometers),  or  resonators.  They  are  probably 
not  thermometers,  since  then  they  would  be  more  sensitive  to 
red  than  to  yellow  light,  and  still  more  to  the  slower  heat  waves 
than  to  red.  But  the  cones  may  very  well  be  resonators.  If  they 
are,  the  fact  would  account  for  their  remarkable  unfatiguability, 
a  point  which  Hering  emphasized  in  his  arguments  against  Helm- 
holtz,  and  to  provide  for  which  (in  part)  Hering  conceived  his 
antagonistic  ana-  and  katabolic  visual  processes:  a  conception 


NEURAL  PERIODICITIES  327 

which  was  applied  by  Hering  to  the  temperature  sense,  and  which 
was  overturned  by  the  discovery  of  separate  warmth  and  cold  spots. 
Now  Meisling  adduces  facts  concerning  the  structure  of  the  cones, 
their  several  types,  the  structure  of  the  several  layers  of  the  retina, 
the  contraction  of  cones  under  light  stimulation,  and  concerning 
the  rest-currents  and  action-currents  of  the  retina,  showing  how 
these  facts  well  agree  with  the  view  that  the  cones  are  electro- 
magnetic resonators. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  confirmation  of  this  view  lies  in 
the  complementary  attunement  of  those  instruments  which  re- 
ceive Hertzian  waves ; r  a  point  which  I  have  already  touched  on. 
This  would  account  inevitably  for  the  complementariness  of  colors, 
and  in  this  regard  both  of  the  present  theories  of  color  are  un- 
satisfactory. Helmholtz's  'errors  of  judgment'  are  in  many 
phenomena  of  antagonism  altogether  far-fetched :  and  Bering's 
kata-  and  anabolic  processes  are  unconfirmed  hypotheses;  they 
meet  special  difficulties  in  regard  to  the  white-black  series,  and 
they  contravene  sound  physiological  analogy.  For,  as  has  been 
pointed  out  before,  it  is  as  unprecedented  that  an  ana-bolic 
process  should  directly  yield  sensation,  as  that  it  should  directly 
cause  muscular  contraction. 

It  is  admitted  on  all  sides  that  neither  the  Helmholtz  nor  the 
Hering  theory  of  vision  had  ever  the  authority  of  Helmholtz's 
theory  of  audition,  and  that  neither  is  to-day  an  acceptable  theory. 
It  is  generally  believed  that  each  contains  errors  so  radical  that 
it  would  take  elimination  as  well  as  supplementation  to  trans- 
form it  into  a  definitive  theory.  Such  a  transformation,  of  either 
theory,  Meisling  offers  when  he  suggests  in  place  of  'visual- 
substances'  three  or  more  differently  attuned  types  of  retinal 
resonators.  And,  as  we  have  seen,  the  same  suggestion  contains 
the  foundation  for  an  explanation  for  the  so-far  unexplained  an- 
tagonism of  colors.  Whatever  the  result  may  be  for  color  the- 

1  Pierce,  G.  W.,  Experiments  on  Resonance  in  Wireless  Telegraph  Circuits. 
Parts  II,  III,  V.,  Physical  Rev.,  1905,  20,  220 ;  21,  367 ;  1907,  24,  152.  Also  Theory 
of  Coupled  Circuits.  Proc.  Amer,  Acad.  of  Arts  and  Sci.,  1911,  46,  293. 


328  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

ory  in  general,  our  present  point  is  that  we  have  cogent  arguments 
for  believing  that  the  visual  impulse  traveling  along  the  optic 
nerve  is,  as  in  the  case  of  audition,1  a  vibratory  impulse  whose 
period  corresponds  with  the  vibration  rate  of  the  impinging 
stimulus.  And  the  opposing  view  of  photo-chemical  substances 
with  'qualitative  specific  energies'  has  no  direct  evidence  to 
support  it  and  a  considerable  body  of  evidence  to  refute  it.  Mr. 
Meisling's  position,  I  believe,  is  conservative,  and  more  secure  than 
any  other. 

When  we  come  to  the  other  senses  much  less  can  be  said  on 
either  side  of  our  question.  I  cannot  discover  that  anything 
pertinent,  and  I  might  almost  say  anything  at  all,  is  known  of  the 
actual  physiology  of  the  remaining  organs  of  sense.  Certainly 
all  details  of  the  processes  of  stimulation  here  are  veiled  in  mys- 
tery. These  other  senses  are  generally  thought  to  be  either  me- 
chanical or  chemical  as  to  their  immediate  stimulation.  Rod- 
vision  remains  a  chemical  sense  of  which  no  further  details  are 
known  concerning  the  nervous  impulse  that  the  bleaching  of  the 
visual  purple  initiates.  Yet  the  minute  hairs  on  the  olfactory 
and  gustatory  cells  have  given  rise  to  some  speculation  as  to 
whether  the  ultimate  stimulus  here  might  not  be  mechanical  after 
all.  The  temperature  organs  may  well  be  resonators  to  heat 
waves,  but  that  is  pure  hypothesis.  The  pain,  touch,  and  joint 
senses  are  almost  certainly  mechanical  in  their  mode  of  stimula- 
tion, but  that  statement  has  no  special  significance  for  one  who 
is  trying  to  understand  the  physiological  processes  involved  in 
their  stimulation.  The  fact  that  mechanical  stimulation  of  the 
chorda  tympani,  a  gustatory  nerve  which  passes  through  the 
middle  ear,  produces  a  sensation  of  taste,  remains  the  one  undis- 
puted case  in  the  series  that  was  adduced  by  Miiller.  It  does  not 

1  Lest  the  reader  think  me  perverse  in  arguing  against  resonance  in  audition 
and  for  it  in  vision,  I  must  remind  him  that  I  am  arguing  not  in  the  interests  of  theo- 
retical grace  or  symmetry,  but  solely  on  the  basis  of  evidence.  Audition  might 
very  well  depend  on  resonance  and  still  the  nervous  impulse  might  be  vibratory, 
while  still  the  Muller-Helmholtz  hypothesis  of  a  nerve-fibril  for  each  auditory 
pitch  might  be  untrue. 


NEURAL  PERIODICITIES  329 

prove  the  existence  of  a  qualitative  specific  energy,  but  it  may 
squint  that  way,  and  must  be  borne  in  mind  in  a  dispassionate 
survey  of  the  whole  situation.1  We  are  woefully  ignorant  of  all 
these  matters,  and  in  science  imagination  is  no  counter-irritant  for 
ignorance.  The  Mtillerian  theory  of  specific  energies  receives 
no  support  from  the  total  ignorance  prevailing  in  this  field,  while 
it  is  refuted  by  much  that  we  do  know  about  vision  and  audition. 
If  conjectures  are  to  be  made  as  to  the  nervous  impulse  in  the 
mechanical  and  chemical  senses,  the  safest  way  will  be  to  draw 
some  analogy  with  what  we  do  know  about  the  light  and  sound 
senses.  I  personally  believe  that  gratuitous  conjectures  (as 
opposed  to  grounded  deductions)  are  mischievous,  and  I  have  no 
interest  in  them,  whether  they  are  pro-  or  anti-Miillerian.  There 
is  a  general  consideration,  however,  which  may  properly  be  men- 
tioned here.  The  specific  energies,  whether  in  nerve-fiber,  brain- 
cell,  or  synapse,  are  conceived  of  as  differing  qualitatively  from 
one  another.  Now  science  has  so  frequently  found  that  examina- 
tion of  what  appear  to  be  qualitative  differences  shows  them  to 
be  really  quantitative  differences,  that  it  has  come  to  be  a  maxim 
of  science  that  there  are  no  'qualitative*  differences.  This,  I 
think,  oversteps  the  mark :  there  are  qualitative  differences, 
obviously,  but  these  are  usually  analyzable  into  quantitative  dif- 
ferences ;  precisely  as  every  starch  is  a  starch,  but  can  be  analyzed 
into  one  of  a  series  of  quantitatively  related  carbohydrates.  The 
maxim  should  then  be,  simply,  that  quality  is  not  an  ultimate 
category  of  natural  science,2  and  this  maxim  is  universally  ac- 
knowledged save  by  a  small  group  of  persons  of  a  certain,  possibly 

1 1  could  mention  several  explanations  which  have  been  offered  for  this  phenom- 
enon, which  expressly  avoid  the  assumption  of  a  specific  energy,  and  which  are 
consonant  with  a  vibratory  theory  of  the  nerve-impulse.  I  do  not  mention  them 
because  the  facts  still  seem  too  meager  to  point  clearly  to  any  explanation  whatso- 
ever, either  Muller's  or  another's. 

1 1  am  speaking  here  of  the  more  concrete  empirical  sciences,  and  do  not  by  this 
wish  to  prejudice  the  question  as  to  whether  philosophically  '  quality  '  is  or  is  not 
an  ultimate  category.  The  maxim  referred  to  is  the  equivalent  of  —  "  Look  with 
suspicion  on  all  apparently  qualitative  differences.'* 


330  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

rather  vague,  type  of  mind,  such  as,  for  instance,  the  neo-vitalists. 
Now  it  follows  from  this  that  the  specific  energies  can  hardly  hope 
(or  desire)  to  retain  their  peculiar,  strictly  'qualitative'  status, 
and  I  should  like  to  ask  the  believers  in  specific  energies  if  they 
can  think  of  any  other  quantitative  interpretation  for  these 
qualitative  differences,  than  one  which  I  have  been  arguing  for. 
If  I  have  spoken  against  specific  energies  in  toto,  it  was  solely 
because  most  of  the  followers  of  Mtiller  cling  tenaciously  to  their 
unanalyzable  'qualities'  and  account  them  the  palladium  of 
their  sect.  It  is  significant  indeed  that  Helmholtz,  who  did  more 
than  any  one  else  to  substantiate  Miiller's  theory  by  physiological 
evidence,  held  that  the  energies  differed  only  in  quantitative  ways.1 
And  it  is  only  fair  to  add  that  in  Miiller's  own  writings  the  word 
'quality'  is  used  only  in  a  casual  fashion,  as  if  it  slipped  in  while 
his  attention  was  focussed  on  other  matters.  I  do  not  think  that 
Miiller  anywhere  proposes  to  exclude  the  resolution  of  these 
'qualitative'  into  quantitative  differences.  And  it  is  a  matter 
of  indifference  whether  the  arguments  which  I  have  presented 
shall  be  said  to  oppose  or  to  interpret  and  extend  the  original 
theory  of  specific  energies.  The  real  purpose  of  this  all  too  te- 
dious digression  into  physiology,  is  to  show  that  there  is  excellent 
and  abundant  evidence  of  minute  periodic  fluctuations  in  the  nerve- 
impulse,  and  of  a  close  correspondence,  in  the  cases  of  audition  and 
color-vision,  between  these  fluctuations  and  the  vibration  rates 
of  the  impinging  physical  stimuli. 

We  have  next  to  examine  the  secondary  qualities  from  the 
so-called  subjective  or  introspective  point  of  view:  and  here  we 
shall  presently  see  the  bearing  of  the  foregoing  discursus  on  the 
realistic  issue. 

Our  urbane  adversary  adduces  secondary  qualities,  and  perhaps 
even  deigns  to  mention  his  favorite  red,  yellow,  or  blue,  quite 
as  if  these  matters  contained  no  intricacies  worthy  of  his  closer 
attention,  and  none  that  could  throw  any  light  on  his  own  pro- 

1 1  have  to  give  this  on  the  authority  of  Bering,  aa  I  do  not  readily  find  the  state- 
ment in  Helmholtz's  writings. 


QUALITY  AND  QUANTITY  331 

found  views  as  to  their  'subjective'  nature.  Indeed  our  adver- 
saries, particularly  of  the  present  generation,  are  so  emancipated 
from  allegiance  to  anything  that  can  be  called  empirical,  look  to 
it  so  little  for  guidance,  and  argue  on  grounds  so  a  priori,  that  they 
can  only  expect  some  day  or  other  to  be  punished  for  indolence  and 
frivolity.  The  blessed  Absolute  will  certainly  strike  out  at  them 
with  a  burst  of  novelties :  for  the  Absolute  is  a  powder-magazine 
as  well  as  a  precious  pot  of  slumbering  ineffables.  Now  the  sec- 
ondary qualities  present  interrelations  both  fixed  and  intelligible, 
so  that  those  persons  who  seriously  study  them  begin  to  see  that 
they  form  a  system  like  the  systems  discovered  in  mathematics, 
and  this  fact  alone,  as  some  one  has  said,  already  sets  them  off 
from  the  purely  'subjective/  individual,  and  incalculable.  Un- 
questionably the  most  comprehensive  single  treatise  on  these 
interrelations  is  the  remarkable  work  of  Dr.  Brentano,  "Unter- 
suchungen  zur  Sinnespsychologie."  *  He  dwells  primarily  on  the 
relation  of  similarity  between  the  qualities.  Thus  in  the  spectral 
series  of  colors,  every  hue  has  a  position  intrinsic  to  itself  by  virtue 
of  its  similarity  to  the  adjacent  hues :  a  particular  orange  has  no 
place  in  the  series  except  just  between  a  certain  yellowish  red  on 
the  one  side  and  a  certain  reddish  yellow  on  the  other.  To  assign 
it  any  other  position  would  be  like  trying  to  assign  to  the  number 
3  a  position  in  the  number  series  between  528  and  529.  (I 
know  that  some  subjectivists  declare  with  their  usual  license  that 
this  can  be  done,  but  before  they  stake  great  hopes  on  doing  it 
I  urge  that  they  actually  try  and  then  report  to  us  from  time  to 
time  on  progress  made.  One  can  place  orange  in  space  among  the 
reddish  purples,  but  it  hits  back  at  one  because  the  spatial  order 
has  been  made  discrepant  with  the  'intrinsic,'  logical  color  order.) 
And  the  case  is  the  same  with  grays,  with  auditory  pitches  and 
timbers,  with  warmth  and  cold  sensations,  to  some  extent  (which 
increases  with  careful  study)  with  tastes  and  odors :  the  same 
thing  is  true  of  all  intensities  in  whatever  field  of  sensation. 
Now  why,  asks  Brentano,  is  this  relation  of  similarity  so  rigid 

1  Leipzig,  1907. 


332  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

and  inexorable?  The  reply  has  often  been  that  the  question 
admits  of  no  answer,  that  namely  this  qualitative  similarity  is 
an  ultimate,  unanalyzable  category;  the  very  answer  that  for 
centuries  was  made  regarding  the  similarities  between  plant  and 
animal  species  and  between  chemical  substances.  God  made 
them  so ;  voild  tout.  The  modern  answer  is  identical  save  that, 
agreeably  to  the  whim  of  the  day,  God  is  left  out.  But  Dr. 
Brentano  is  something  of  an  empiricist,  and  knows  the  empiri- 
cal grounds  for  the  maxim  that  quality  is  not  an  ultimate  cate- 
gory of  science.  He  looks  then,  but  only  looks  and  does  not  a 
priori  argue,  for  some  quantitative  resolution  of  these  qualita- 
tive relations  of  similarity.  And  he  finds  them  in  profusion.  It 
happens  that  ever  since  the  day  when  Helmholtz  made  a  group  of 
tuning-forks  pronounce  the  vowels,  and  he  and  Stumpf  showed  that 
musical  chords  can  be  analyzed,  not  merely  physically  but  as 
purely  'subjective'  phenomena,  it  has  been  generally  conceded 
in  psychology  that  a  quality  may  seem  as  unitary  as  possible, 
and  that  it  may  nevertheless  be,  still  merely  as  a  conscious  phe- 
nomenon, complex.  It  is  admitted  in  short,  though  sometimes 
grudgingly,  that  even  consciousness  requires  careful  study,  like 
any  other  phenomenon,  and  that  a  seemingly  simple  quality  may 
only  need  practised  scrutiny  to  be  resolved  into  separate  ele- 
ments. The  merest  novice  may  have  an  inkling  of  this  if  he  will 
strike  the  prongs  of  a  fork  from  the  dinner  table,  press  his  finger 
very  lightly  thereon,  and  ask  himself  carefully  whether  he  feels 
a  simple  quality  of  roughness  or  a  microtactile  succession  of  im- 
pacts. In  fact,  the  analysis  of  conscious  qualities  is  precisely 
like  the  analysis  of  chemicals ;  if  careful  study  yields  an  analysis, 
the  phenomenon  was  not  simple ;  if  components  are  not  isolated, 
the  phenomenon  may  be  simple,  or  it  may  yet  be  analyzed  by  fur- 
ther study. 

This  principle  is  now  endorsed  by  the  most  conservative  au- 
thorities, for  the  entire  range  of  musical  chords,  timbers,  and  every 
other  variety  of  auditory  quality,  except  pitches,  and  including 
(with  a  few  dissenting  opinions)  noises.  The  principle  is-  not  so 


ANALYSIS  OF  QUALITIES  333 

universally  admitted  in  the  field  of  color,  and  here  Brentano 
commences  his  investigation —  "Concerning  Phenomenal  Green." 
Is  green  a  simple  quality  with  'similarities'  to  yellow  and  blue, 
or  is  the  green  composed  of  two  elements,  yellow  and  blue  ?  In- 
trospective reports  differ,  and  the  question  arises  whether  this  is 
because  the  judgments  are  based  merely  on  associations  (as  in 
some  careless  investigations  in  aesthetics)  and  are  subject  to  va- 
rious 'illusions  of  judgment,'  or  whether  the  divergence  arises 
because  the  individuals  reporting  have  varying  degrees  of  skill 
at  introspective  analysis,  as  in  the  case  of  the  analysis  of  a  chord 
by  musical  and  unmusical  individuals.  For  Brentano  the  latter 
is  the  case  here,  and  in  my  opinion  he  thoroughly  substantiates 
his  opinion  l  with  a  wealth  of  fact  and  a  scrupulous  precision  of 
treatment,  which  leave  nothing  to  be  desired.  The  conofensusof 
opinion  among  painters,  who  are  here  the  trained  musicians,  is 
that  green  is  composite,  and  phenomenally  is  yellow  and  blue. 
This  is  not  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  often  make  their  greens 
by  mixing  yellow  and  blue  pigments,  for  on  the  one  hand  they  very 
often  make  green  by  mixing  yellow  and  black ;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  while  they  as  often  make  yellow  by  mixing  orange  and 
green  pigments,  they  never  see  in  the  phenomenon  yellow  — 
orange  and  green.  They  make  'fine  gray'  (S.  153)  too  by  mix- 
ing red  and  green,  and  another  gray  by  mixing  yellow  and  blue, 
yet  they  never  see  in  the  resulting  gray  these  pairs  of  colors. 
Brentano's  argument  touches  every  conceivable  aspect  of  the  case, 
and  I  must  here  refer  the  skeptical  reader  to  the  original  work. 
Green  is,  in  short,  an  interesting,  because  disputed,  case  like 
others  which  are  more  generally  admitted.  More  persons  admit 
that  they  see  orange  as  red  and  yellow,  that  purple  is  red  and  blue, 
that  greenish  blue  is  green  (or  yellow)  and  blue,  than  admit  that 
green  is  a  composite  quality.  There  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  strik- 
ing unanimity  of  opinion  among  the  practiced  as  well  as  the  un- 
practiced,  that  white  resembles  no  color,  that  gray  resembles  nothing 

1  Op.  cit.,  5-49,  129-158.     It  may  be  remarked,  by  the  way,  that  Dr.  Brentano 
seems  to  be  quite  untainted  by  realistic  heresies  (cf.  1). 


334  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

except  white  and  black,  and  that  red,  and  yellow,  and  blue  are 
phenomenally  simple.1  Thus  the  rudiments  of  a  mathematical 
system  among  the  colors  begin  to  emerge,  as  once  analytical 
chemistry  emerged,  by  virtue  of  unanimity  among  the  penetrating 
and  expert,  and  in  spite  of  some  dissent  from  those  less  experi- 
enced.2 Brentano  brings  out  many  other  analyses  of  color 
qualities  into  their  simpler  components :  but  of  these  I  will  men- 
tion but  one.  Is  it  true,  he  asks,  that  red  and  green  are  as  an- 
tagonistic as  Bering,  for  instance,  declares  them  to  be  when  he 
says  that  they  can  never  be  perceived  together  at  one  place? 
And  if  so  why  is  it  that  olive-green  seems  to  so  many  persons  to 
contain  a  red  component?  Brentano  says  much  more  about  it, 
but  I  will  leave  the  question  here  to  the  reader's  introspection; 
admitting  for  myself  that  I  have  always  seen  red  in  olive-green  and 
have  never  dared  to  say  so. 

In  the  field  of  audition  Professor  Brentano  takes  up  an  analysis 
by  Professor  Mach 3  of  the  pitch  series,  into  merely  two  qualities  — 
'Dumpf  and  'Hell';  such  that  the  various  pitches  consist  solely 
of  these  two  qualities  combined  in  varying  proportions.  Bren- 
tano does  not  fully  agree  with  this,  but  agrees  so  far  as  to  admit 
the  qualities,  dull  and  bright,  and  that  the  lower  and  higher  pitch 
ranges  are  always  tonally  unsaturated  by  reason  of  an  admix- 
ture with  one  of  these  qualities,  precisely  as  dark  and  light  colors 
are  always  unsaturated  by  reason  of  admixture  with  black  or  white 
respectively.4  There  follows  an  incisive  and  careful  account  of 
the  matter,  based  on  introspective  judgments,  which  is  not  wholly 
out  of  joint  with  the  valuable  contributions  of  Stumpf  in  this  same 

1  Cf.  H.  Ebbinghau3  on  the  'turning-points'  of  the  color  quadrilateral  (Grund- 
zuge  der  Psychologic.  Leipzig,  1905,  197-198) ,  also  Titchener,  E.  B.,  A  Textbook 
of  Psychology.  New  York,  1909,  Part  I,  60. 

*  An  interesting  paper  on  the  mathematics  of  this  system  is  K.  Zindler's  Ueber 
raumliche  Abbildungen  des  Continuums  der  Farbenempfindungen  und  seine  mathe- 
matische  Behandlung.      Zsch.  f.  Paychol.   u.  Phyaiol.  d.  Sinneaorgane,  1899,  20, 
225-293. 

1  Mach,  E.,  Die  Analyse  der  Empfindungen,  2te  Auflagc,  Jena,  1900 ;  Kapitel 
"Die  Tonempfindungen,"  169-205. 

*  Brentano,  op.  tit.,  99-125. 


ANALYSIS  OF  QUALITIES  335 

field.  On  these  and  many  other  purely  introspective  empirical 
analyses  of  the  qualities  Brentano  bases  his  principle  of  'com- 
pound qualities'  (multiple  Qualitat),1  the  principle,  namely, 
that  the  qualities  presented  in  consciousness  are  generally  not 
simple,  not  even  'phenomenally'  simple,  but  are  composed  of  two 
or  more  qualities  which  careful  introspection  enables  us  to  appre- 
hend as  integral  parts  of  the  presented  quality.  This  principle 
is  by  no  means  new,  being  merely  an  extension  to  the  entire  field 
of  conscious  qualities  of  the  principle  of  analysis  already  brought 
to  approval  and  acceptance  through  their  work  on  musical  chords 
and  timbers,  by  Helmholtz  and  Stumpf.  And  I  think  that  an 
unbiased  survey  of  the  facts  adduced  by  Brentano  must  convince 
any  one  of  the  correctness  of  this  extension  of  qualitative  analysis 
which  is  offered  in  the  principle  of  compound  qualities. 

Now  in  recent  years  the  traditional  distinction  between  the 
'different  senses,'  i.e.  the  modes,  has  been  generally  breaking 
down.  It  is  at  best  based  on  nothing  but  the  gross  anatomy  of 
sense-organs,  and  has  just  about  that  weight  of  authority  which  we 
concede  to  the  popular  'five  senses  of  man.'  Apart  from  the  facts 
that  the  '  sense  of  touch '  is  supplied  with  at  the  very  least  four 
different  sets  of  nerves  and  sense-organs,  and  the  tongue  with  at 
least  three  types  of  sense-organ  and  three  distinct  cranial  nerves, 
we  have  innumerable  conscious  units,  phenomenally  considered, 
which  at  first  sight  seem  as  simple  as  colors  or  musical  chords, 
but  for  which  we  know  that  the  physiological  apparatus  of  pro- 
duction involves  a  variety  of  different  senses.2  The  most  familiar 
case  of  this  is  the  so-called  'taste'  sensations,  of  which  all  but 
four  (sweet,  salt,  bitter,  and  sour)  involve  the  cooperation  of  an 
indefinite  number  of  olfactory  fibrils,  besides,  very  often,  that  of 
touch,  warmth,  cold,  and  pain  fibers  as  well.  Thus  a  taste  which 
until  analyzed  seems  as  simple  as  the  color  yellow  is  yielded  by 
no  less  than  three  of  the  'five  senses'  working  in  cooperation; 
or,  in  the  modern  terminology,  by  the  action  of  the  taste,  smell, 

1  Brentano,  op.  cit.,  159-161. 

*  This  fact  is  brought  out  well  by  Nagel  in  the  essay  previously  referred  to. 


336  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

tactile,  and  perhaps  the  warmth,  cold,  and  pain  'modes'  all 
together.  Almost  every  familiar  touch  sensation  (smoothness, 
wetness,  et  cetera)  is  recognized  as  being  similarly  compounded 
of  two  or  more  dermal  modes.  And  the  number  of  such  seemingly 
simple,  yet  physiologically  complicated,  sensations  is  beyond 
reckoning;  and  were  it  to  come  to  such  conscious  entities  as 
"the  feeling  of  triangularity,"  which  several  psychologists  have 
asserted  to  be  simple,  the  variety  exceeds  all  bounds.  In  short 
the  modal  boundaries,  perfunctorily  taught  in  many  elementary 
textbooks,  has  no  meaning  at  all  for  a  psychology  which  has 
outgrown  its  swaddling  clothes  (cf.  Nagel,  op.  cit.).  Here  too 
Brentano  comes  in  with  fresh  arguments,  and  notably  in  the 
matter  of  intensity.  Now  intensity  is  admittedly  a  feature  of  all 
sensations  and  perceptions,  and  in  so  far  binds  together  the  dif- 
ferent modes.  Yet  only  rather  recently  has  it  been  shown  l  that 
the  intensities  of  two  different  qualities  even  within  a  mode  can 
be  accurately  compared  and  a  judgment  pronounced  of  more  and 
less.  Professor  von  Kries  now  says  that  this  is  undoubtedly  pos- 
sible for  colors  however  distinct  in  quality.  Dr.  Brentano  goes 
further,  showing  that  hi  such  cases  as  of  a  very  faint  odor  com- 
pared with  a  loud  noise,  it  is  possible  to  judge  that  the  latter  is 
more  intense  than  the  former.  How  far  practiced  introspection 
may  enable  us  to  go  toward  the  refinement  of  such  judgments, 
nobody  as  yet  may  know.  There  are  also  other  communities 
between  the  different  modes :  "A  sound  that  approaches  a 
noise  in  character  we  ...  pronounce  a  less  saturated  tone  sen- 
sation than  another  which  is  less  like  a  noise.  In  the  field  of 
taste,  indeed,  Aristotle  correctly  remarks  that  sweet  is  related 
to  bitter  as  is  a  brighter  to  a  darker  color.  And  similarly  sev- 
eral persons  whom  I  have  asked  have  definitely  pronounced  the 
cool  sensation  of  a  breeze  blowing  on  the  hand  as  brighter  than 
the  feeling  of  a  warm  breath.  A  sensation  of  coolness  com- 
pared with  that  of  sweetness  or  with  the  odor  of  a  lily,  is  as  un- 

1  Cf.  von  Kries,  J.,  Nagel's  Handbuch  der   Physiologie  des  Menschen,  Braun- 
schweig, 1904,  3,  256-267. 


ANALYSIS   OF  QUALITIES  337 

saturated  as  white  compared  with  a  color  in  the  narrower  sense, 
or  as  a  hiss  or  other  noise  compared  with  a  vibrant  tone.1 "  By 
such  examples  this  author  shows  not  only  that  the  infinity  of 
qualities  within  the  mode  consists,  phenomenally,  of  combina- 
tions of  elementary  qualities,  but  also  that  the  modes  themselves 
merge  into  one  another  and  present,  in  part  at  least,  common 
elements  such  as  intensity,  saturation,  brightness,  and  so  forth. 
Lastly  I  will  mention  Professor  Brentano's  thesis  that  no  quality 
which  has  intrinsically  a  position  between  two  other  qualities  can  be 
simple.  It  must  rather  be  a  compound  of  the  qualities  between 
which  it  so  obviously  lies.  For  in  what,  otherwise,  should  the  two 
similarities,  this  necessary  betweenness,  consist  ?  Here  he  takes, 
as  unequivocally  as  possible,  the  accepted  position  of  science,  that 
qualitative  'similarity'  is  never  an  ultimate  category. 

However  one  may  agree  or  disagree  here  with  some  of  the  par- 
ticular cases,  enough  is  proved,  and  I  think  very  amply  proved, 
to  show  that  nearly  if  not  quite  all  of  the  so-called  secondary 
qualities  are,  taken  merely  as  phenomena,  complex;  that  careful 
introspection  enables  us  to  analyze  out  many,  more  elementary 
qualities;  and  that,  furthermore,  we  cannot  as  yet  seethe  limits 
to  the  possibilities  of  such  analytical  procedure.  Such  a  psy- 
chological 'atomism/  for  this  is  what  the  whole  matter  points 
to,  has  been  shown  by  other  writers  to  be  the  course  which  the 
facts  are  clearly  leading  psychology  into.  Professor  Miinster- 
berg  is  one  who  has  urged  this.2  "Are  these  sensations,"  he  writes, 
"  the  ultimate  elements  of  our  consciousness,  or  is  that  which  we 
call  a  blue  or  a  hot  sensation,  a  sweet  taste,  a  tone  C,  a  muscle 
sensation  or  a  pain  sensation  itself  a  complex  affair  which  consists 
of  more  elementary  parts :  in  short,  have  we  in  the  mind  ultimate 
elements  which  are  simpler  than  the  sensations?  It  is  the  in- 
quiry for  a  radical  psychological  atomism."  (pp.  4-5).  "The 
psychological  fact  which  stands  immediately  in  the  foreground 
of  such  considerations  is  the  fact  of  the  similarity  of  the 

1  Brentano,  op.  tit.,  80. 

1  Miinsterberg,  H.,  Psychological  Atomism.     Psychol.  Rev.,  1900,  7,  1-17. 
z 


338  .ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

sensations.  .  .  .  Similarity  from  the  point  of  view  of  descrip- 
tion is  community  of  parts :  .  .  .  The  logical  conclusion  by 
analogy  is  that  two  sensations  also  are  similar  to  each  other  only 
when  they  contain  various  component  parts  of  which  some  are 
common  to  both.  These  parts  are  of  course  not  sensations  but 
inexperienceable  factors  like  the  atoms,  and  as  we  do  not  know  a 
sensation  which  is  not  in  some  way  similar  to  some  other  one,  we 
can  say  that  no  known  sensation  is  an  ultimate  element"  (p.  11). 
Thus  for  Professor  Miinsterberg  the  ultimate  elements  will  neces- 
sarily be  'absolutely  dissimilar'  from  one  another,  since  so  long 
as  any  similarity  subsisted,  it  would  indicate  the  presence  of  some 
yet  similar  common  ingredient.  The  same  should  indeed  seem 
to  follow  from  Professor  Brentano's  principle  that  no  quality  is 
simple  which  (by  similarity)  lies  between  two  others.  Both 
writers  agree  that  all  the  traditional  modal  "demarcation  lines 
which  existed  for  the  sensations  have  now  disappeared.  .  .  .  The 
similarity  between  smell  and  taste,  or  between  touch  and  muscle 
sensation,  and  so  on,  appears  then  not  different  from  the  similarity 
of  two  tones"  (p.  13).  Professor  Miinsterberg  adds  that  only  the 
ultimate  elements,  "the  psychic-atoms  can  rightly  be  correlated 
with  the  physiological  units"  (p.  16),  meaning  to  suggest,  clearly, 
something  like  cortical  cells  or  synapses. 

This  is  a  very  promising  program,  but  one  point  needs  fur- 
ther examination.  We  seem  to  come  out  with  a  set  of  'utterly 
dissimilar'  psychic  elements,  and  we  seem  to  have  no  clue  as 
to  how  many  of  these  we  are  likely  to  find;  it  will  apparently 
not  be  less  than  the  number  of  cortical  elements.  This  must  be, 
of  course,  as  it  empirically  is  found  to  be;  and  yet  an  analysis 
with  so  stated  a  limit  is  so  different  from  all  other  scientific  analyses, 
that  one  is  prompted  to  look  through  the  argument  once  again. 
Besides,  scientific  analysis  arrives  at  similars  and  not  at  differents. 
Will  it  pay  us  to  undertake  the  analysis  at  all  if  at  the  end  the 
number  of  irreducible  elements  is  to  be  not  less,  and  perhaps  far 
more,  than  the  number  of  brain-cells  or  synapses  ?  Will  that  be  a 
kind  of  science  to  which  the  human  mind  shall  advisedly  address 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  ATOMISM  339 

itself  ?  We  have  already  seen  that  introspective  analysis  is  pre- 
cisely comparable  to  chemical  analysis,  and  Professor  Miinster- 
berg's  program  promises  as  its  goal  very  much  that  thing  which 
chemistry  had  attained  when  it  had  reduced  all  substances  to 
some  seventy  not  further  reducible  types  of  atom.  But  we  now 
see  that  this  was  not  to  be  the  goal  of  chemistry ;  the  periodic  law, 
largely,  dissolved  these  'atoms.'  A  further  comparison  with 
chemistry  shows  the  miscalculation  in  this  psychological  program. 
And  this  lies  hi  the  neglect  of  an  important  aspect  of  analysis. 

If  it  is  true  that  a  quality  which  lies  between  two  others  must 
have  a  common  ingredient  with  them,  it  does  not  necessarily 
follow  that  for  the  original  three  qualities  the  total  number  of 
ingredients  is  now  four  (one  common  and  three  proprial).  Such 
cases  occur,  but  they  are  utterly  atypical.  Typically  the  three 
qualities  are  at  first  found  to  consist  of  two  ingredients  only, 
combined  in  different  numerical  proportions ;  and  finally  of  only 
one  substantial  ingredient,  such  as  one  kind  of  atom,  variously 
organized,  such  as  three  sizes  of  molecule.  And  science  has  the 
best  empirical  evidence  for  accounting  no  analysis  complete  until 
it  has  reduced  all  qualitative  differences  to  different  arrangements 
of  elements  which  are  all  alike  in  quality.  (And  'quality'  here 
is  presently  seen  no  longer  to  have  a  meaning.)  In  physics  and 
chemistry  these  arrangements  are  confessedly  numerical  values 
organized  in  time  and  space.  Now  it  is  here,  probably,  that  Pro- 
fessor Miinsterberg  finds  the  rub,  for  he  denies  (for  reasons  of  a 
somewhat  'metaphysical  character)  that  psychic  atoms  exist  in  tune 
and  space,  or  can  be  organized  therein.  It  should  seem  to  be 
for  this  reason  that  he  sets  so  singular  a  goal  to  psychological  analy- 
sis. Now  we  can  for  the  moment  grant  him  the  timeless  aspatiality 
of  psychic  atoms,  since  a  merely  numerical,  or,  as  I  should  per- 
fer  to  say,  logical  principle  of  organization  is  quite  enough  for 
our  purpose;  —  of  which  the  number  system  itself  is  an  instance. 
This  principle  alone  will  give,  from  one  type  of  element,  all  the 
variety  which  we  require,  as  any  one  shall  see  who  will  trouble  to 
enumerate  all  the  positive  whole  numbers,  to  say  nothing  of  the 


340  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

negative,  fractional,  irrational,  and  'unreal'  numbers.  There 
seem,  then,  to  be  no  reasons  of  a  general  nature  why  we  should  not 
hope  to  reduce  by  analysis  all  of  the  conscious  qualities  to  different 
forms  of  organization  of  one  sort  of  element.  So  much  for  theory ; 
how  are  the  concrete  facts  ? 

They  are  most  patently  that  psychic  entities  in  general  (and 
not  merely  elements)  are  organized  into  higher  units  precisely 
in  time  and  space.  The  '  Gestaltqualitaten '  are  precisely  such 
higher  units :  any  rapidly  phrased  sequence  of  a  few  tones  yields 
a  form-quality  which  psychologists  have  repeatedly  declared  to  be 
a  new,  unique,  independent,  and  unanalyzable  quality ;  and  yet  it 
is  a  thing  of  which  the  structure  remains  conspicuous.  New  and 
unique  it  may  be,  but*it  is  neither  independent  nor  unanalyza- 
ble ;  indeed,  the  conscious  analysis  cannot  be  inhibited  except  by 
the  most  purblind  votary  of  preconceptions.  Certainly  there  is 
novelty  about  a  new  form  of  organization ;  water  is,  indeed,  more 
than  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  it  is  these  with  organization  added. 
And  this  is  precisely  what  the  analyst  says,  —  water  is  hydrogen 
and  oxygen  and  organization.  So  with  the  form-qualities.  Their 
number,  too,  is  without  end  in  all  the  fields  of  sensation  where 
succession  can  be  perceived,  and  I  make  bold  to  affirm  that  none 
can  deny  that  here  the  psychic  components  are  organized  in  time 
(just  like  'ether'  vibrations)  except  after  an  a  priori  meta- 
physical preamble  which  is  deliberately  calculated  to  obscure 
the  salient  empirical  fact. 

Now  we  have  form-qualities  in  space  as  well  as  in  time.  The 
late  Professor  James  has  dwelt  on  the  integral  aspect  of  such 
'feelings'  as  that  of  triangularity,  rotundity,  squareness,  and  one 
quite  grants  this  as  one  grants  the  integral  aspect  of  water.  In- 
deed I  should  add  millions  more,  for  I  discover  a  similar  integral 
aspect  to  the  comic  and  the  tragic,  to  the  picturesque,  the  blithe, 
the  wholesome,  the  inquisitorial,  and  the  horrific.  (While  the  un- 
analyzed  aspects  of  the  canonic-pretentious,  the  idiotic-fallacious, 
the  obscurantic,  and  the  conscious-deceptive  are  units  to  keep  well 
in  mind  so  that  one  may  recognize  and  name  them  when  one 


FORM-QUALITIES  341 

meets  them  —  whether  in  one's  self  or  in  another.)  These  all, 
however,  have  their  disintegral  aspects  as  well;  they  are  clearly 
complexes  organized  temporally,  spatially,  or  logically,  or  in  more 
than  one  of  these  ways  at  once.  The  beauty,  however,  of  the  purely 
temporal  or  spatial  form-qualities  is  that  they  reveal  more  clearly 
than  any  instance  ever  shown  in  chemistry,  that  the  peculiar 
flavor  of  the  whole  does  not  devour  and  supersede  the  distinct- 
ness of  the  parts,  or  that  the  relatedness  of  the  parts  is  not  repug- 
nant to  the  unity  of  the  whole.  If  one  finds  it  at  all  within  one's 
powers  to  believe  that  the  water  which  one  drinks  is  oxygen  and 
hydrogen  spatially  combined,  how  much  more  should  one  see  that 
the  Graal  Motiv  is  a  temporal  succession  of  tones,  and  that  the 
triangle  is  perceptions  of  line  and  angle  spatially  ordered :  for  the 
water  does  appear  to  supersede  its  gaseous  components,  whereas 
in  the  form-qualities  the  synthesis  and  analysis  are  to  be  observed 
simultaneous  and  amicable.  Once  more  I  affirm  that  one  cannot 
deny  the  spatiality  of  the  organization  of  the  conscious  elements 
of  a  triangle,  except  one  close  one's  empirical  eye-lids  in  sleep. 

But  these  cases  seem  remote  from  the  secondary  qualities, 
our  theme.  I  mention  them  merely  because  their  temporal  and 
spatial  organization  is  so  indubitable.  Yet  from  these  form-quali- 
ties we  can  pass  directly  down  to  the  qualities  where  the  formal  ele- 
ment almost  or  quite  defies  introspection,  and  we  shall  find 
examples  at  every  step.  A  paradigm  than  which  nothing  clearer 
can  be  desired  is  a  series  of  light  touch  stimuli  given  at  an  ever 
increasing  rate.  The  single  tap  is  called  a  conscious  (secondary) 
quality.  A  pair  in  slow  succession  is  already  a  form-quality,  with 
all  the  vaunted  charms  of  novelty,  uniqueness,  and  what  not ;  yet 
I  will  not  believe  that  even  amid  such  delights  any  one  can  for 
an  instant  find  there  anything  more  than  two  taps  plus  temporal 
organization  (I  grant  that  this  last  consists  of  more  than  mere 
twoness).  A  pair  given  in  more  rapid  succession  is  another 
form-quality,  'entirely  different7  from  the  first,  as  we  may  read 
in  many  of  the  textbooks.  It  is  not  entirely  different,  but  it  is 
different,  and  by  just  as  much  as  the  difference  of  temporal  or- 


342  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

ganization  has  altered  it.  Here  too  the  unity  of  the  whole  does  not 
infringe  on  the  distinctness  of  the  parts.  As  the  taps  are  given 
in  faster  and  faster  succession,  however,  there  comes  a  time  when 
encroachment  sets  in  (at  somewhere  around  3  taps  per  sec).  The 
integral  aspect  is  approaching  that  to  which  we  give  the  name 
roughness  (but  is  not  yet  roughness),  and  the  attention  is  drawn 
ever  and  anon  from  this  to  the  other  aspect,  which  now  consists 
in  an  attempt  to  count  the  taps  and  to  articulate  the  number 
with  the  tongue.  The  two  aspects  have  begun  to  behave  precisely 
like  the  two  aspects  of  water  —  either  H2O  or  water.  The  in- 
compatibility of  the  two  aspects  depends,  however,  on  no  feature 
of  the  new  form-quality,  but  on  a  definitely  physiological  defect 
of  the  tune-sense  which  has  begun  to  be  flustered  and  calls  in  the 
tongue  to  its  aid  and  so  spasmodically  wins  to  itself  the  balance 
of  attention.  This  is  precisely  comparable  to  those  time-errors 
mentioned  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  paper.  Even  here  favor- 
able moments  arise  when  the  integral  and  disintegral  aspects  are 
apprehended  together  and  as  not  antagonistic.  As  now  the  rate 
of  tapping  increases  the  unified  aspect  approaches  the  (form-) 
quality  of  roughness,  and  more  and  more  tends  to  usurp  the  at- 
tention; while  the  succession-of-parts  aspect  becomes  vaguer. 
Articulation  is  outstripped,  then  the  count  is  lost,  then  a  sympa- 
thetic, voluntary,  inner  rhythm  (of  the  vocal  cords?)  which  re- 
placed lingual  articulation  falters  and  fails,  leaving  a  bare  and  non- 
participating  awareness  of  succession.  This  last  persists  up  to 
very  much  higher  rates,  dying  down  only  at  about  600  taps  per 
second.  Meanwhile  the  roughness  has  become  a  distinct  quality 
in  its  own  right,  so  that  some  psychologists  describe  it  as  subsist- 
ing with,  but  'utterly  independent'  of,  the  awareness  of  succes- 
sion. They  are  the  same  who  find  water  utterly  independent  or 
hydrogen  and  oxygen;  while  the  truth  is  merely  that  with  the 
increasing  rate  of  the  taps  comes  increasing  (logical  and  tem- 
poral) complexity  of  relations,  to  meet  which  the  attention 
(with  its  time-sense  and  other  auxiliary  implements),  no  longer 
able  to  survey  the  whole  intricacy,  covers  such  parts  as  it  best 


SECONDARY  QUALITIES  343 

can.  Again  (to  resort  to  my  all  but  evaporated  simile)  this  is 
like  the  many  properties  of  water,  all  of  which  are  deducible  from, 
and  logically  bound  up  in,  the  properties  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen 
and  their  form  of  combination;  yet  so  intricate  is  the  whole 
manifold,  that  the  scientist  thinks  himself  fortunate  if  in  a  life- 
time he  can  make  a  survey  of  even  the  vapor-pressure  properties 
of  oxygen  or  the  role  played  by  water  in  dropsy  of  the  mammalian 
heart.  This  is  what  there  is,  and  all  that  there  is,  in  the  current 
semi-mystical  rubbish  about  the  incorruptibility  of  wholes  into 
their  parts.  A  whole  is  different  from  and  independent  of  its 
parts  for  precisely  those  persons  who  find  the  word  'independent' 
so  censurable  when  uttered  by  the  realist. 

Thus  in  the  experience  of  tactual  roughness  the  properties  of 
the  ordered  whole  gradually  supersede  hi  attention  the  properties 
of  the  parts  ordered,  not  because  the  whole,  as  the  rate  of  tapping 
increases,  is  coming  to  be  anything  other  than  the  ordered  sum  of 
its  parts,  but  because  the  quicker  succession  soon  eludes  the  sense 
of  tune,  and  so  leaves  other  features  of  the  succession  (which  more- 
over is  itself  now  a  more  complicated  thing,  per  tune  unit  if  not 
also  otherwise)  to  occupy  the  attention.  This  is  merely  to  say, 
what  we  have  found  all  along,  that  the  faculty  of  attentive  intro- 
spection (and  notably  in  so  far  as  this  relies  on  the  time-sense) 
has  its  distinct  limitations.  Stated  with  less  concreteness  but 
with  more  logical  precision,  the  case  is  this.  Even  a  slow  suc- 
cession of  taps  (and  even  were  each  of  these  logically  simple  like 
a  geometrical  point)  is  already  a  logical  system  of  no  mean  com- 
plexity ;  as  one  sees  from  the  number  of  derivatives  discovered 
by  differential  calculus  where  a  rate  of  succession  is  involved.  It 
has  therefore  distinct  parts  which  I  have  in  deference  to  a  bad 
tradition  called  'aspects.'  Now  the  case  of  the  rather  slow 
tapping  shows  us  that  the  series  is  at  one  and  the  same  time  both 
a  division  of  time  and  a  quality,  roughness;  by  which  I  do  not 
mean  that  the  quality  is  anything  over  and  above,  or  added  to 
the  pure  succession  of  taps.  It  is  some  intrinsic  feature  of  that 
succession,  logically  bound  up  in  it.  The  quality  part  may  be 


344  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

related  to  the  time-division  part  as  the  mere  arithmetical  number 
of  railroad  ties  to  the  mile  is  to  the  spatial  distance  between  the 
ties :  these  two  values  are  simple  functions  of  each  other,  of  course, 
and  yet  mathematically  not  identical.  Indeed,  the  actual  experi- 
ence of  the  taps  strongly  suggests  that  the  quality  is  the  number 
of  taps  per  unit  of  time  (i.e.  their  density)  as  distinguished  from 
the  (perceived)  time  interstices  between  them ;  for  as  this  time- 
perception  wanes,  the  (to  be  sure  uncounted,  which  is  a  still  dif- 
ferent matter)  number-quality,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  waxes.  To 
show  that  this  is  by  no  means  whimsical  hair-splitting,  I  may 
remind  the  reader  that  in  railroad  construction  one  speaks  of  a 
cheap  or  expensive  road-bed,  quite  as  if  these  were  'qualities' 
of  the  bed.  Now  this  quality  of  expense  is  held  to  vary  directly 
with  the  number  of  ties  to  the  mile  (for  one  of  the  factors) ;  while 
the  very  different  quality  of  safety  of  traffic  is  held  to  vary  directly 
(for  one  factor)  with  the  nearness  of  the  ties  to  one  another.  And 
even  to  a  layman  it  would  seem  less  direct  to  state  the  safety  of 
traffic  in  terms  of  the  number  of  ties  to  the  mile,  or  the  expense 
of  construction  in  terms  of  the  spatial  vacancies  between  the  ties, 
although  either  could  be  done  and  by  some  accountants  doubt- 
less is.  Similar  niceties  abound  in  the  computation  of  traffic- 
density,  train-load,  and  so  forth.1 

Again  a  rate  of  motion  is  a  rate  of  motion,  yet  it  has,  not  by  way 
of  additions  but  by  way  of  inclusion  and  inalienably,  first,  second 
and  n  derivatives  of  space  with  regard  to  time :  these  are  parts  of 
it  just  as  number  of  taps  per  time  unit  and  the  divided  time  inter- 
vals are  parts  of  the  tap-sequence.  Yet  as  intimately  as  the  rate 
of  motion  and  its  first  derivative  are  related,  so  that  to  loose 
thinking  "one  is  merely  a  different  aspect  of  the  other,"  the  rate 
of  motion  may  be  very  great  while  the  first  derivative  is  zero; 

1  Again,  to  borrow  a  simile  from  Professor  Royce,  how  unrelated  is  the  shiftless  or 
penurious  habit  of  shaving  every  other  day,  to  the  pious  practice  of  shaving  im- 
maculately every  Sabbath :  surely  as  different  as  the  quality  of  tactual  roughness 
is  from  the  quality  of  tactual  slowness.  Yet  the  oft-demonstrated  incompatibility 
of  shiftlessness  and  piety  rests  on  the  mere  numerical  triviality  that  3  times  2  is  an 
even  number,  while  7  times  1  is  odd.  The  parallel  is  imperfect. 


QUALITY  AND  DENSITY  345 

the  body  is  moving  rapidly,  but  accelerating  not  at  all.  And 
when  this  little  mathematical  scheme  of  relations  is  found  to  pre- 
vail hi  concrete  affairs  it  often  determines  extreme  qualitative 
contrasts.  A  man  may  be  very  rich  (a  form-quality  surely) 
and  happy  (another  and  very  different  form-quality),  yet  the  being- 
rich  depends  on  his  rate  of  income  while  the  being-happy  or  un- 
happy depends  on  the  first  derivative  of  the  rate  of  income  —  the 
rate  of  accumulation;  for  however  rich  a  man  is  he  sees  and  feels 
his  fortunes  bright  if  his  rate  of  income  is  increasing  (i.e.  if  the 
first  derivative  is  positive) ;  but  he  sees  them  dwindling  and  feels 
that  ruin  is  only  a  matter  of  time  if  the  first  derivative  of  his  rate 
of  income  is  negative. 

I  hold  it  then  to  be  no  academic  act  of  logic-chopping  if  I  say 
that  the  experience  of  the  tactual  rhythm  shows  that  tune-division 
and  number  ('AnzahP)  of  taps  per  tune-unit  are  distinct  though 
inseparable  parts  of  this  sequence,  and  that  this  latter  feature  is 
just  the  quality  of  roughness.  At  some  rates  the  attention  may 
be  given  to  both  features  simultaneously  or  to  either  at  will; 
at  other  rates  the  powers  of  attention  (introspection)  prove  inade- 
quate and  only  the  quality  can  be  apprehended.  This  reveals  a 
limitation  of  the  power  of  introspection,  and  more  specifically 
of  the  time-sense,  but  not  any  cleavage  between  the  inseparable 
features  of  time-division  and  tap-frequency. 

Now  as  the  rate  of  tapping  becomes  still  faster  the  quality  of 
roughness  changes  continuously  toward  the  quality  of  smooth- 
ness (just  as  in  the  spectrum  red  changes  to  yellow),  until  even- 
tually it  has  run  its  gamut  and  becomes  the  steady  quality  of  con- 
tinuous touch;  which  under  other  complications  is  a  component 
of  the  form-quality  solidity.  The  precisely  parallel  experience  is 
to  be  had  hi  the  field  of  audition  where  a  slow  sequence  of  faint 
thuds  or  hisses  passes  over  into  a  musical  pitch.  Here  too  there 
is  a  rate  (best  gotten  with  a  siren  of  governable  speed)  at  which  the 
sound  sequence  and  pitch  are  experienced  together,  as  distinct 
but  inseparable.  Here  too  careful  scrutiny  shows  that  the 
marked-off  time-intervals  are  tune  perceptions,  while  the  repeated 


346  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

hisses  are  the  quality  of  pitch :  the  two  are  just  as  distinct  but 
just  as  inseparable  parts  of  the  given  succession  as  are  the  first 
and  second  derivatives  of  a  rate  of  motion.  In  perception  they 
are  separable  (as  in  mathematics  distinguishable)  just  as  in  per- 
ception the  form  is  separable  from  the  size  of  a  concrete  object :  — 
so  specific  is  the  action  of  the  nervous  system  in  selecting  what 
features  of  a  complex  shall  enter  consciousness.  The  same  ex- 
perience is  had  again  when  the  beats  between  two  tones  (nearly 
alike,  but  steadily  departing  from  each  other  in  pitch)  gradually 
pass  over  (with  a  disagreeable  transitional  stage  of  dissonant 
roughness)  into  a  third  pitch,  the  difference-tone.  Anent  which 
we  have  some  amusing  speculations,  called  introspections,  by 
persons  whose  logic  has  vitiated  their  introspection.  These  per- 
sons say  that  because  the  beats  and  the  difference-tone  can  at  a 
certain  rate  be  apprehended  simultaneously,  the  two  "must  be 
utterly  independent"  entities  —  a  point  which  we  have  already 
dealt  with.  The  parallel  experience  can  be  had  in  vision  where 
an  intermittent  color  stimulus  is  seen  with  increasing  rate  of 
flicker.  At  first  it  is  succession  without  the  flicker  quality,  then 
succession  and  a  form-quality  of  flicker,  then  less  obvious  succes- 
sion and  more  distinct  (form-)  quality,  then  the  quality  of 
(rough)  flicker,  then  the  quality  of  smooth  flicker,  then  the  end. 
This  series  is  run  through  rapidly,  since  flicker  entirely  disappears 
at  60  to  70  alternations  per  second.  The  plain  lesson  of  all  these 
cases  is  that  what  we  call  secondary  qualities  are  in  truth  form- 
qualities,  simple  psychic  entities  in  temporal  organization  (rate 
of  sequence)  and  we  are  tempted  to  view  them  as  qualities  instead 
of  form-qualities  because  for  all  but  the  most  absurdly  slow  rates 
of  succession  the  time-sense  is  inadequate  to  its  task.  The  succes- 
sive 'aspect'  is  unperceived  while  the  multitude  'aspect'  (it 
might  be  by  mere  summation)  gains  on  the  attention.  The  time- 
sense  throws  over  its  duty  so  preposterously  early  that  it  is  no 
wonder  that  for  the  upper  range  of  pitches  and  for  all  the  colors 
(which  we  know  are  'correlated  with/  and  which  I  am  aiming 
to  show  are  identical  with,  extraordinarily  rapid  successions)  every 


QUALITY  AND  DENSITY  347 

trace  whatsoever  of  a  form-quality  should  elude  the  introspec- 
tion. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  sum  up  what  I  fear  will  have  been 
a  tedious  and  apparently  aimless  array  of  evidence.  The  prevalent 
form  of  the  specific  energy  theory,  or  the  view  that  the  secondary 
qualities  present  ultimate  unresolvable  'qualitative  differences' 
(like  the  immutable  species  deposited  by  the  hand  of  God  in 
the  Garden  of  Eden),  has  utterly  broken  down.  It  is  actually  the 
view  that  the  qualities  are  independent,  unanalyzable,  psychic 
substances,  and  there  is  no  good  evidence  that  Johannes  Miiller 
ever  intended  his  theory  to  take  this  shape.  These  qualities, 
considered  merely  as  phenomena,  reveal  to  introspection  compound 
structure  (musical  chords,  timbres,  colors  like  blue-green,  orange, 
violet,  sensations  such  as  roughness),  'similarities'  (odors),  and 
other  affinities  and  repugnancies  which  prove  that  these  quali- 
ties are  not  so  independent  as  was  supposed,  but  are  at  least 
related  as  different  species  are  related  in  a  genus.  Further,  the 
field  of  consciousness  presents  innumerable  instances  of  psychic 
components  organized  into  higher  unities  by  means  of  spatial 
or  temporal  relations  (form-qualities).  Indeed,  the  entire  field 
of  consciousness  presents  nothing  but  such  complex  entities  in  which 
the  principle  of  organization  is  either  spatial,  temporal,  or  logi- 
cal, and  a  class  reputed  to  stand  quite  apart,  of  entities  alleged 
to  be  simple  and  independent  — the  'secondary  qualities.'  These 
complex  entities  have  indeed  a  unified  'aspect,'  on  which  alone 
some  writers  are  prone  to  dwell,  and  otherwise  they  were  not  units 
at  all ;  but  they  each  and  every  one,  as  I  have  tried  to  bring  out, 
reveal  unmistakably  the  unity  of  the  whole  undispelled  by  the 
relatedness  of  the  parts,  and  the  ordering  of  the  parts  constitutive 
of  the  unity  of  the  whole,  as  even  no  example  of  chemistry  or 
physics  so  reveals.  To  any  but  the  most  purblind  gaze  they 
utterly  scatter  and  quench  the  neo-Hegelian  imbecilities  about 
'vital,'  'organic,'  unanalyzable,  and  altogether  ineffable  'wholes.' 
Alone  the  secondary  qualities  maintain  their  hereditary  Sonder- 
stellung.  But  we  have  found  a  breach  in  their  wall  and  now  know 


348  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

how  defenseless  is  their  position  behind  it.  Any  form-quality  of 
which  the  principle  of  organization  is  time  is,  like  any  other  con- 
tent, dependent  on  the  mechanism  of  perception  for  its  entry  into 
consciousness.  And  when  tune  is  the  formal  principle,  this  form,  if 
perceived  at  all,  must  be  perceived  by  aid  of  the  time  sense  (of  which 
the  physiological  mechanism  is  so  far  not  in  the  least  understood) ; 
and  this  tune-sense  is  utterly  inadequate  to  perceive  the  form- 
qualities  when  the  tune  divisions  therein  involved  are  very  small. 

One  hears  that  the  time-sense  is  most  acute:  and  the  most 
favorable  case  that  can  be  cited  is  that  of  bare  succession.  A 
single  pair  of  auditory  stimuli  can  be  perceived  as  two,  even  when 
they  succeed  each  other  by  two  thousandths  of  a  second.  But 
this  is  not  in  truth  a  time-perception ;  it  is  one  of  mere  'twoness,' 
i.e.  bare  numerical  as  opposed  to  a  truly  temporal  discrimination. 
And  if  the  stimuli  continue  at  anything  like  this  rate  of  succes- 
sion, the  conscious  result  becomes  at  once  a  mere  burred  sensa- 
tion akin  to  the  quality  of  roughness.  The  time  interval  involved 
is  not  apprehended  (as  time).  Tactual  roughness  can  still  be  ap- 
prehended when  the  stimuli  are  as  frequent  as  600  per  second,  and 
this,  again,  is  cited  as  a  feat  of  the  time-sense.  But  such  it  is  not. 
There  is  no  more  consciousness  of  time  involved  in  the  quality  of 
roughness  than  in  that  of  smoothness  or  in  the  quality  red,  as  the 
most  casual  introspection  proves.  What  is  interesting  about  rough- 
ness is  that  its  quality  varies  so  immediately  with  the  number]  of 
stimuli  given  hi  a  time-unit  that  it  shows  conclusively  that  the 
nerve  is  able  to  carry  an  impulse  of  this  same  frequency  number, 
and  that  the  roughness  quality  is  precisely  this  frequency  magni- 
tude and  with  the  time  element  specifically  omitted  from  con- 
sciousness. Just  this,  now,  is  what  I  contend  is  the  case  with  all 
of  the  secondary  qualities :  they  are  all  /orw-qualities  in  which  the 
temporal  subdivisions  are  so  small  that  the  time-sense  cannot  dis- 
criminate them,  whereas  the  frequency  magnitude  or  the  density 
still  remains  perceivable :  and  density  is  different  from  time,  since 
we  have  it  in  spatial  and  even  in  mathematical  manifolds. 

Now  if  the  secondary  qualities  are  all  such  densities,  it  must  be 


QUALITY  AND  DENSITY  349 

that,  however  inadequate  the  time-sense,  the  nerve-fibril  is  at 
least  able  to  carry  these  densities  or  frequency  magnitudes  to 
the  brain  (even  those  of  the  highest  frequencies,  which  are  the 
violet  end  of  the  spectrum).  And  this  is  precisely  what  physi- 
ology is  now  showing  to  be  the  case.  Rayleigh  and  More  have 
proved  that  the  auditory  nerve  carries  sound-frequencies,  up  to 
512,  if  not  1024,  per  second.  And  Meisling  has  adduced  facts  and 
arguments  of  great  weight  to  show  that  the  visual  cones  are  electro- 
magnetic resonators,  and  that  the  optic  nerve  must  carry  impulses 
of  a  frequency  proportioned  to  that  of  waves  of  light.  Every- 
where, moreover,  physiology,  as  distinct  from  sense  physiology, 
is  finding  in  the  phenomena  of  'Treppe/  refractory  phase,  el 
ccetera,  that  the  nerve  current  shows  oscillations  which  can  be 
measured  only  in  a  few  thousandths  of  a  second.  If  physiology 
has  been  late  in  discovering  this,  it  is  because  such  frequencies, 
to  say  nothing  of  higher  ones,  could  by  no  possibility  have  been  dis- 
covered prior  to  certain  very  recent  improvements  of  instrumental 
technique,  and  specially  the  introduction  of  the  oscillograph  or 
string-galvanometer.  I  hold  it,  then,  to  be  a  view  which  is  amply 
supported  by  facts,  that  the  secondary  qualities,  instead  of  being  un- 
analyzable  psychological  elements  are  all  form-qualities  of  which  the  I 
time-sense  is  inadequate  to  perceiving  the  form,  while  the  density  is 
perceived  for  very  high  frequencies  by  a  process  which  is  perhaps] 
related  to  physiological  summation.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the] 
secondary  qualities  seem  to  engage  the  attention  roughly  in  propor- 
tion to  their  density,  as  from  our  present  view  we  should  be  led  to 
expect.  Tactual  roughness  is  readily  driven  from  attention  (inhib- 
ited) by  a  sound  of  moderate  pitch,  this  by  a  higher  pitch,  and  so 
on  up.  But  a  color  of  anything  like  the  same  intensity,  when  pre- 
sented, makes  it  difficult  to  attend  to  a  sound.1 

1  Of  course  all  this  is  true  only  when  the  comparisons  are  carefully  made.  Atten- 
tion factors  such  as  '  Bewusstseinslage,'  difference  of  intensity  between  the  com- 
pared qualities,  fatigue,  and  many  other  factors  will  obscure  the  point.  I  am  speak- 
ing, too,  of  cases  where  the  time  element  is  not  present,  and  excluding,  therefore, 
such  temporal  form-qualities  as  rough  flicker  et  ccetera.  Where  the  temporal 
organization  begins  to  be  perceived,  it  often  strikingly  commands  the  attention. 


350  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

Our  argument  comes  out  to  a  psychological  atomism  which  is 
substantially  like  that  proposed  by  Spencer.1  "Although  the 
individual  sensations  and  emotions,  real  or  ideal,  of  which  con- 
sciousness is  built  up,  appear  to  be  severally  simple,  homogeneous, 
unanalyzable,  or  of  inscrutable  natures,  yet  they  are  not  so.  There 
is  at  least  one  kind  of  feeling  [musical  sound]  which,  as  ordinarily 
experienced,  seems  elementary,  that  is  demonstrably  not  ele- 
mentary. And  after  resolving  it  into  its  proximate  components, 
we  can  scarcely  help  suspecting  that  other  apparently-elementary 
feelings  are  also  compound,  and  may  have  proximate  compo- 
nents like  those  which  we  can  in  this  one  instance  identify  "  (pp. 
148-149).  There  follows  an  account  of  the  beats  going  over 
into  a  difference-tone,  and  so  forth.  Now  "if  the  different  sen- 
sations known  as  sounds  are  built  out  of  a  common  unit,  is  it  not  to 
be  rationally  inferred  that  so  likewise  are  the  different  sensations 
known  as  tastes,  and  the  different  sensations  known  as  odors, 
and  the  different  sensations  known  as  colors?  Nay,  shall  we 
not  regard  it  as  probable  that  there  is  a  unit  common  to  all  these 
strongly-contrasted  classes  of  sensations?  If  the  unlikenesses 
among  the  sensations  of  each  class  may  be  due  to  unlikenesses 
among  the  modes  of  aggregation  of  a  unit  of  consciousness  com- 
mon to  them  all;  so,  too,  may  the  much  greater  unlikenesses 
between  the  sensations  of  each  class  and  those  of  other  classes. 
There  may  be  a  single  primordial  element  of  consciousness,  and 
the  countless  kinds  of  consciousness  may  be  produced  by  the 
compounding  of  this  element  with  itself  and  the  recompounding 
of  its  compounds  with  one  another  in  higher  and  higher  degrees : 
so  producing  increased  multiplicity,  variety,  and  complexity" 
(p.  150). 

"Have  we  any  clue  to  this  primordial  element?  I  think  we 
have.  That  simple  mental  impression  which  proves  to  be  the 
unit  of  composition  of  the  sensation  of  musical  tone,  is  allied  to 
certain  other  simple  mental  impressions  differently  originated. 

1  Spencer,  H.,  The  Principles  of  Psychology.  Third  Edition,  I,  Part  II,  Chap. 
I,  (New  York,  1892,  i,  145-162). 


PSYCHIC  ATOMISM  OF  SPENCER  351 

The  subjective  effect  produced  by  a  crack  or  noise  that  has  no 
appreciable  duration,  is  little  else  than  a  nervous  shock  "  (p. 
150).  Quite  so,  and  I  think  that  the  experience  which  I  before 
called  the  still  small  voice  of  psychology,  somewhat  approxi- 
mates this  primitive  nervous  shock.  Spencer  gives  many  further 
illustrations.  "The  fact  that  sudden  brief  disturbances  thus 
set  up  by  different  stimuli  through  different  sets  of  nerves,  cause 
feelings  scarcely  distinguishable  in  quality,"  he  continues,  "will 
not  appear  strange  when  we  recollect  that  distinguishableness 
of  feeling  implies  appreciable  duration ;  and  that  when  the  dura- 
tion is  greatly  abridged,  nothing  more  is  known  than  that  some 
mental  change  has  occurred  and  ceased.  ...  It  is  possible,  then 
—  may  we  not  even  say  probable  —  that  something  of  the  same 
order  as  that  which  we  call  a  nervous  shock  is  the  ultimate  unit 
of  consciousness;  and  that  all  the  unlikenesses  among  our  feel- 
ings result  from  unlike  modes  of  integration  of  this  ultimate 
unit"  (p.  151). 

In  view  of  the  time  at  which  this  was  written  (about  1855), 
the  speculation  seems  astonishingly  bold.  Even  more  so,  to  me, 
seem  certain  remarks  (pp.  152-153)  on  the  oscillatory  nature  of  the 
nervous  impulse,  and  I  should  much  like  to  know  what  physi- 
ological investigations  were  then  available,  which  justified  the 
belief  in  nervous  frequencies  at  anything  like  the  rate  of  sound 
or  light.  Nevertheless  subsequent  investigations  have  remark- 
ably confirmed  Spencer's  view  (I  had  almost  said,  intuition),  and 
it  seems  to  me  that  to-day  this  atomistic  theory  of  consciousness, 
hardly  modified  from  the  form  which  Spencer  gave  it,  must  be 
looked  on  as  a  very  shortly  to  be  demonstrated  fact.  Most  sub- 
stantially supported  by  empirical  investigations  it  already  is. 
For  myself  I  quite  adhere  to  this  view,  while  dissenting  from  Spen- 
cer's further  remarks  as  to  the  nature  of  the  primordial  conscious 
unit,  and  from  other  features  of  his  philosophy  of  mind.  In 
weighing  this  theory  one  should  never  forget  the  phenomenon  of 
roughness,  which  (whatsoever  the  sense-organ  that  originates  it) 
is  to  introspection  a  quality,  and  is  at  the  same  time  nothing  else 


352  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

than  the  density  of  a  succession  of  conscious  shocks,  which  seem 
individually  to  be  of  quite  infral-modal  primitiveness. 

This  completes  our  argument.  And  now  I  can  reply  to  the 
anti-realist's  questions:  How  can  realism  pretend  to  assert  the 
reality  of  the  color,  sound,  and  so  forth  which  are  vividly  present 
in  the  dreams  of  a  person  sleeping,  it  may  be,  in  a  box  no  bigger 
than  his  coffin?  Realism,  I  say,  can  assert  this  because  the 
nervous  system,  even  when  unstimulated  from  without,  is  able  to 
generate  within  itself  nerve-currents  of  those  frequencies  whose 
density  factor  is  the  same  as  in  ordinary  peripheral  stimulation. 
I  have  not  said,  be  it  noted,  that  the  density  factor  of  the  nervous 
impulse  is  the  secondary  quality:  it  is  the  density  of  the  series 
of  some  relatively  primitive  sensation  which  is  the  secondary 
quality ;  and  nerve  impulses  may  also  have  such  a  density,  as  also 
may  Hertzian  waves  and  many  other  things.  The  case,  then,  of 
sensory  hallucinations,  whether  due  to  the  'inadequate'  stimu- 
lation of  nerves  or  to  so-called  central  excitation,  is  entirely  com- 
parable to  the  cases  of  illusion  which  we  considered  in  the  earliest 
sections  of  this  paper.1  In  this  connection  I  should  not  quite 
say  with  Professor  Alexander 2  that,  "The  illusory  character  of  the 
appearance  is  the  defect  of  our  quality.  With  an  organ  adapted 
to  see  red  we  can  see  only  red,  no  matter  how  the  organ  is  set 
a-working."  The  hallucinatory  quality  needs  to  be  explained 
more  specifically,  and  this,  I  think,  we  have  done.  We  could, 
of  course,  be  more  specific  yet  and  suggest  that  such  sensory 
resonators  as  the  retinal  cones  would  resonate  in  their  own 
period  to  the  electricity  released  by  any  of  the  various  metabolic 
processes  going  on  in  their  vicinity  (as  a  brass  resonator  will 
sound  its  own  tone  in  response  to  any  tap) :  we  could  suggest  that 
the  cortical  synapses  have  much  to  do  with  the  periodicity  of 

1  If  some  un-serious  objector  wishes  to  know,  then,  whether  these  qualities  may 
on  occasion  be  surprised  by  an  outsider  as  they  flit  through  some  patient's  skull,  I 
will  say  that  it  is  here  precisely  as  with  the  same  nerve-oscillations  when  they  are 
normally  instituted.  One  studies  their  densities  by  such  means  as  one  finds  avail- 
able; and  these  are  commonly  not  the  unaided  eye  or  ear. 

*  Alexander,  S.,  Proc.  of  the  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1910,  N.  S.,  10,  10. 


DENSITY  AND  QUALITY  353 

nerve-impulses :  or  that  nerve-impulses  of  various  periods  com- 
ing together  in  the  central  nervous  system  must  often  produce 
an  impulse  of  a  new  and  perhaps  higher  frequency.  But  specu- 
lation on  the  minuter  details  ought  to  wait  on  investigation.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that  the  nervous  impulse  at  large  is  oscillatory ;  and  that 
the  oscillations  do  sometimes  (without  external  aid)  become  very 
rapid,  is  no  ground  for  astonishment. 

I  must  here  forestall  an  erroneous  inference  that  will  almost 
certainly  be  made  from  the  foregoing  paragraph :    this  is,  that 
hallucinatory  and  other  consciousness  is  in  the  skull.     Quite  on 
the  contrary,  consciousness,  whenever  localized  at  all  (as  it  by  no 
means  always  is)  in  space,  is  not  in  the  skull,  but  is  'out  there' 
precisely  wherever  it  appears  to  be.    This  is,  for  me  at  least,  one 
of  the  cardinal  principles  of  realism,  and  a  realist  would  say  with 
Berkeley  that  "the  rose  is  really  red"  and  so  forth,  just  as  it  appears 
to  be.1    The  idea  that  consciousness  is  within  the  skull,  current  as 
it  is,  has  arisen  from  the  obvious  connection  between  modifica- 
tions of  the  nervous  system  and  changes  in  consciousness.     But 
this  connection  can  be  in  other  ways  than  that  of  a  spatial  inclu- 
sion of  consciousness  by  the  nervous  system.     Suppose,  for  in- 
stance, that  the  latter  is  like  a  search-light  which,  by  playing  over 
a  landscape  and  illuminating  now  this  object  and  now  that,  thus 
defines  a  new  collection  of  objects  all  of  which  are  integral  parts 
of  the  landscape  (and  remain  so),  although  they  have  now  gained 
membership  in  another  manifold  —  the  class  of  all  objects  on  which 
the  illumination  falls.     Here,  too,  there  would  be  a  direct  connec- 
tion between  the  members  of  the  illuminated  class  and  the  move- 
ments of  the  light :  as  there  is  between  the  contents  of  conscious- 
ness and  changes  of  the  nervous  system.    Any  class  that  is  formed 
from  the  members  of  a  given  manifold  by  some  selective  principle 
which  is  independent2  of  the  principles  which  have  organized  the 

I 1  cannot  here  treat  such  a  point  with  the  thoroughness  that  it   deserves.     I 
have,  however,  discussed  it  at  length  in  a  volume,  "The  Concept  of  Consciousness," 
which  was  completed  some  time  since  and  which  will  appear,  I  hope,  very  shortly. 

1  See  Perry's  essay  in  this  volume,  The  Importance  of  the  Notion  of  Independ- 
ence. 

2A 


354  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

manifold  may  be  called  a  cross-section.  And  such  a  thing  is  con- 
sciousness or  mind,  —  a  cross-section  of  the  universe,  selected 
by  the  nervous  system.  The  elements  or  parts  of  the  universe 
selected,  and  thus  included  in  the  class  mind,  are  all  elements  or 
parts  to  which  the  nervous  system  makes  a  specific  response.  It 
responds  thus  specifically  to  a  spatial  object  if  it  brings  the  body 
to  touch  that  object,  to  point  toward  it,  to  copy  it,  and  so  forth. 
It  responds  to  a  secondary  quality  which  is  'on'  a  particular 
object  by,  firstly,  a  similar  (and  physiologically  very  complicated) 
response  to  this  special  color  and  no  other.  This  last  is  effected, 
the  facts  seem  to  show,  by  the  nerves  being  capable  of  carrying 
a  nervous  impulse  of  the  same  frequency  as  the  vibrations  which  are 
sent  through  the  intervening  space  by  that  color.  If  the  nervous 
system  can  pick  these  up  and  transmit  them,  it  can  specifically 
respond  to  them :  otherwise  not.  This  puts  the  colors  or  quali- 
ties into  the  nervous  system  neither  less  nor  more  than  the  fact  of 
ether  or  air  vibrations  of  the  same  period  or  density  existing  all 
through  the  intervening  space  puts  these  qualities  into  that  in- 
tervening space.  We  are  little  tempted  to  believe  that  the  color 
of  a  flower  fills  all  the  space  between  the  flower  and  the  eye :  and 
neither  less  nor  more  does  it  fill,  or  enter  into,  the  peripheral 
nerves  and  skull.  The  entity  responded  to  is  the  color  out  there, 
two  factors  which  involve  two  factors  of  response;  but  that 
color  out  there  is  the  thing  in  consciousness  selected  for  such  in- 
clusion by  the  nervous  system's  specific  response.  Consciousness 
is,  then,  out  there  wherever  the  things  specifically  responded  to  are. 
Now  hi  cases  of  hallucination,  indeed,  the  colors,  shapes,  and  po- 
sitions responded  to  are  not  in  'real  space/  as  we  are  accustomed 
to  say ;  but  they  are  in  a  space  which  is  in  all  respects  comparable 
to  mirror  space,  and  which  is  just  as  objective.  Of  their  reality 
I  shall  say  more  in  connection  with  thinghood  and  contradic- 
tion. 

But  one  more  point  here.  In  calling  the  primitive  entity  whose 
density  constitutes  a  secondary  quality  a  'sensation/  I  meant 
in  no  wise  a  thing  within  the  skull,  nor  a  thing  at  all  mental  or 


SPECIFIC  RESPONSE  355 

subjective  in  substance.1  To  introspection  itself  this  simple 
entity  is  as  objective  as  anything  else ;  it  is  simpler,  truly,  than  a 
concrete  object  like  a  shell  or  fossil,  and  so  may  seem  more  ab- 
stract. But  it  has  all  of  the  objectivity  of  other  abstractions  such 
as  points  and  numbers  (which  are  as  little  subjective  as  the  starry 
heavens).  I  have  discussed  at  length  in  another  place 2  the  ulti- 
mate substance  of  mental  and  physical  elements,  and  endeavored 
to  show  that  no  difference  of  substance  exists  between  the  two 
groups.  Professor  Stout  has  well  called  the  qualities  "secondary 
attributes  of  matter."  3  Mind  and  matter  consist  of  the  same 
stuff,4  and  the  little  entity  that  in  aggregates  of  various  densi- 
ties constitutes  the  secondary  qualities  is  not  far  removed  from 
the  little  atom  that  constitutes  physical  bodies,  and  in  point  of 
substance  there  is  no  distinction  at  all.  So,  it  seems  to  me,  we  get 
an  intelligible  picture  of  how  the  secondary  qualities  are  as  ob- 
jective as  the  primary.  Their  being  included  or  not  being  in- 
cluded in  the  class  of  things  which  we  name  a  consciousness,  de- 
pends for  both  alike,  on  their  being  specifically  responded  to  by 
a  nervous  system.  But  consciousness  is  in  no  sense  at  all  within 
the  nervous  system.6 

4.  Illusions  of  Thought.  —  In  the  matter  of  errors  of  thought  — 

1 1  take  it  that  this  is  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Nunn's  "  realist  doctrine  which  takes 
as  ultimate  data  a  psychic  monad."  Proc.  of  the  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1908,  N.  S.,  8,  149 . 

*  The  Concept  of  Consciousness  —  chapters  on  the  Substance  of  Mind,  and  the 
Substance  of  Matter. 

*  Stout,  G.  F.,  Proc.  of  the  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1904,  N.  S.,  4,  146. 
4  Cf.  Alexander,  S.,  ibidem,  1910,  N.  S.,  10,  16. 

8 1  hold  this  view  of  the  secondary  qualities  as  densities,  solely  because  of  its 
empirical  (and  not  its  realistic)  value;  but  I  offer  it  here  on  account  of  its  interesting 
and  favorable  bearing  on  realism.  For  realism  it  is  not  essential  that  the  nervous 
impulse  should  reproduce  and  transmit  to  the  brain  any  specific  character  or  property 
of  the  stimulus.  And  indeed,  while  my  own  views  are  as  stated  above,  I  can  con- 
ceive that  realism  should  successfully  dispense  with  my  notion  of  '  specific  response.' 
This  too  is  not  a  theoretical  construction  in  the  interests  of  realism,  but  my  reading 
of  the  empirical  facts.  Were  it  merely  the  former  thing,  I  should  feel  bound  to 
define  more  sharply  '  specific  response,'  which  is  now  the  best  name  I  have  so  far 
found  for  an  empirical  relation  that  on  further  study  I  hope  to  be  able  to  describe  in 
much  greater  detail. 


356  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

contradicted  opinions,  fallacies  exposed,  disappointed  expec- 
tations, and  outstanding  perplexities  —  we  meet  again  a  diffi- 
culty which  can  honestly  be  urged  against  realism,  one  where  the 
anti-realist  challenges  and  still  more  inspires  the  thoughtfulness 
and  zeal  of  the  realist.  Such  contradictions  subsist,  it  is  quite  true, 
and  if  realism  took  on  itself  to  explain  them  away  realism  would, 
hi  my  opinion,  be  no  better  than  several  other  obliteration-philo- 
sophies which  I  could  name.  The  task  for  realism  or  for  any  phi- 
losophy is  not  to  show  that  evil  is  only  quintessential  good,  the 
imperfect  -  perfect,  and  so  on,  but  to  acknowledge  the  empirical 
subsistence  of  errors  and  contradictions  and  to  show  the  sig- 
nificance and  place  of  these  things  in  the  tissue  of  the  universe. 
And  precisely  here  I  believe  realism  achieves  one  of  its  most  sig- 
nal triumphs. 

We  have  already  found,  and  left  still  outstanding,  a  charge 
against  realism  which  is  now  just  a  case  in  point.  Not  the  illusory 
or  hallucinatory  image  as  such,  it -was  rightly  said  by  our  oppo- 
nent, but  such  an  image  when  it  asserts  itself  to  be  or  when  the 
realist  asserts  it  to  be  a  real  object,  is  the  crux  for  realism.  And 
the  sting  of  this  situation  would  of  course  be  that  such  a  thought 
would  soon  find  itself  contradicted.  The  illusion  that  proclaimed 
itself  real  would  soon  encounter  a  higher  authority  to  show  up 
conclusively  its  unreality.  Or  the  realist  who  declared  these  un- 
realities to  be  real  could  soon  be  confronted  with  the  contradictory 
empirical  evidence  that  they  are  unreal.  And  he  certainly  could 
be.  The  difficulty  in  either  case  is  clearly  one  of  contradictory 
assertions  or  opinions  —  errors  of  thought  —  and  so  we  can  dis- 
cuss these  issues  together,  and  in  doing  so  we  shall  have  left 
from  our  previous  arguments  no  other  objections  outstanding. 
The  issue  includes  all  illusions  of  thought,  but  is  more  compre- 
hensive still,  and  therefore  it  logically  introduces  a  new  section. 


ERROR  357 

II 

ERROR 

1.  Images  Assert  Nothing.  —  Our  first  case  shall  be  the  above- 
mentioned  'crux.'  Now  it  is  not  true  that  an  image  or  other  con- 
tent 'asserts  itself'  to  be  real,  although  I  am  aware  that  several 
neo-realists  and  other  persons  who  may  be  said  to  evince  some 
leanings  toward  realism,  have  declared  this.1  I  cannot  see  with 
what  right  a  person  asserts  that  a  'Hruth  which  the  sensation 
'reveals'  is  its  own  extra-mental  existence."  This  is  certainly 
revealed,  but  not  by  the  sensation  content  itself.  Nor  can  I  con- 
ceive that  any  content  asserts,  for  or  about  itself,  truth,  reality, 
objectivity,  or  anything  else;  such  content  simply  is,  and  any- 
thing  asserted  for  or  about  it  is  another  content  and  one  of  a 
prepositional  nature :  this  is  a  thought  or  opinion  and  it  may  or 
may  not  be  a  true  one.  The  former  content  simply  is,  and  is 
in  itself  neither  true  nor  false.  As  Professor  Dewey  has  said,2 
"Truth  and  falsity  [and  I  should  add  reality  and  unreality]  are 
not  properties  of  any  experience  or  thing,  in  and  of  itself  or  in  its 
first  intention"  :  that  is,  in  its  capacity  as  a  bare  subsistent.  The 
fallacy  in  this  notion  of  the  self-qualification  of  mental  contents 
lies  hi  a  failure  to  discriminate  the  bare  content  as  it  subsists, 
from  (prepositional)  assertions  about  it  which  may  coexist  with 
it  in  the  mind,  either  explicitly  or  subconsciously.  The  first 
content  is  what  logic  knows  as  a  term,  the  second  is  one  or  more 
propositions.  To  confuse  the  two  is  absurd.  But  the  same 
confusion  is  present  wherever  we  find  it  said  that  a  sensation  or 
idea  is  'aware  of/  'refers  to,'  'points  at/  or  'means'  its  ob- 
ject. The  content  does  not  refer  to  its  object  in  any  way;  it 
is  a  part  of  the  object.  Any  such  assertion  about  objectivity  or 
about  reality  is  another  (and  prepositional)  content;  it  is  also 

1  E.g.  Stout,  G.  F.,  Proc.  of  the  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1904,  N.  S.,  4,  159.  Nunn, 
T.  P.,  ibidem,  1910,  N.  S.,  lo,  201. 

» Dewey,  J.,  Mind,  1906,  N.  S.,  15,  305. 


358  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

supplied  by  experience,  and  it  may  itself  be  further  qualified  as  to 
truth  and  reality  by  another  prepositional  content.  It  is  impor- 
tant to  discriminate  in  every  case  between  what  has  been  called 
the  content  and  intent,  or  more  accurately  between  terms  in  the 
mind  and  propositions  in  the  mind ;  and  after  that,  in  the  words 
of  Professor  Alexander,1  "the  intent  is  for  description  another 
and  special  part  of  the  content."  I  do  not  admit,  then,  that  the 
image,  whether  it  is  true  or  illusory,  asserts  anything  about  it- 
self. Such  an  image  may,  however,  exist  in  the  mind  together 
with  mutually  contradictory  propositions  about  it ;  —  another  case 
of  errors  of  thought,  which  we  are  to  examine. 

2.  What  the  Realist  Asserts.2 — The  realist  does  also  not  assert 
that  an  unreal  thing  (image  or  whatsoever)  is  a  real  thing. 
And  here  the  realist  insists  on  the  conscientious  observance  of  a 
distinction  which  logic  and  mathematics  have  long  since  known 
and  scrupulously  observed,  which  even  some  idealists  have  perhaps 
heard  of,  but  which  not  one  anti-realist  nor  yet  all  realists  seem 
even  remotely  to  appreciate.  This  is  the  distinction  between  real- 
ity and  being  or  subsistence.  Here  is  a  typical  case  of  'reality' 
confused  with  being.  Professor  MacKenzie  writes,3  "and  so  the 
new  realist  seems  to  be  in  truth  one  who  is  persuaded  that  things 
are  just  as  he  apprehends  them.  The  idealist,  on  the  other  hand, 
maintains  that  what  is  directly  perceived  is  never  in  itself  real." 
Thus  when  the  realist  says  that  as  things  are  perceived  so  they  are, 
the  idealist  stupidly  misunderstands  him  to  say  "as  things  are  per- 
ceived so  they  are  really"  i.e.  all  perceived  things  are  real  things. 
But  while  all  perceived  things  are  things,  not  all  perceived  things 
are  real  things.4  Stupid  as  such  a  confusion  is,  it  will  be  found  to 
have  been  made  at  some  point  in  every  anti-realist  argument. 
This  abuse  involves  two  of  Perry's  fallacies,6  pseudo-simplicity 

I  Alexander,  S.,  Proc.  of  the  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1910,  N.  S.,  10,  2. 

I 1  have  treated  all  of  the  ensuing  topics  more  fully  in  my  Concept  of  Conscious- 
ness. 

*  Mackenzie,  J.  S.,  Mind,  1906,  N.  S.,  15,  318. 

4  This  is  why  on  a  previous  page  I  said  that  "as  they  really  are  "  is  not  a  realist's 
phrase.  «  Perry,  R.  B.,  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1910,  7,  341,  350. 


CONTRADICTION  359 

and  verbal  suggestion:  'reality'  is  taken  to  be  a  simple  qualifica- 
tion connoting  no  more  than  being  (as  if  there  were  no  -unreality 
to  be  accounted  for,  as  there  is  no  non-being) ;  and,  again,  the 
fulsome  delights  experienced  by  most  minds  on  mention  of  the 
'real '  (especially  when  exasperated  by  idealistic  futilities  and  un- 
truths), make  it  a  welcome  epithet  which  can  be  slipped  in  unpro- 
tested  anywhere.  Small  wonder  that  idealistic  arguments  which 
provide  so  little  of  the  article  should  make  the  most  of  a  pleasant 
verbal  suggestion:  for  however  troubled  the  sea  of  debate,  the 
comfortable  word  'real'  gives  one  a  sense  of  being  at  home. 

Now  for  realism  by  no  means  everything  is  real ;  and  I  grant 
that  the  name  realism  tends  to  confuse  persons  who  have  not  fol- 
lowed the  history  of  the  term.  For  the  gist  of  realism  is  not  to 
insist  that  everything  is  real,  far  from  it,  but  to  insist  that  every- 
thing that  is,  is  and  is  as  it  is.  Not  a  dangerous  heresy,  this,  it 
should  seem;  but  it  just  happens  that  every  form  of  idealism 
has  maintained  the  contrary,  has  maintained,  to  use  a  term  of 
Professor  Dickinson  Miller's,  some  kind  of  'false-bottom'  the- 
ory of  the  universe.  Idealism  has  either  said  that  since  some 
things  are  demonstrably  erroneous  they  are  not  as,  on  the  same 
authority,  they  are  (i.e.  erroneous)  —  and  this  is  the  German 
way ;  or  it  has  said  that  everything  is  erroneous,  nothing  is  as, 
on  the  very  same  authority,  it  is  —  the  way  of  Mr.  Bradley  and 
his  school.  The  approaches  to  idealism  are  extraordinarily  di- 
verse, or  at  least  are  so  represented  by  their  expounders ;  but 
these  latter  are  in  fact  primarily  engaged  with  the  problem  of  error, 
and  either  they  profess  to  discover  that  it  is  not,  and  so  find  them- 
selves rather  busied  with  an  uneasy  conscience;  or  else  they  are 
obsessed  with  error  everywhere,  and  consequently  fold  their  hands 
in  despair.  For  if  I  dare  profess  at  all  to  grasp  these  anthro- 
pological mysteries,  the  differentia  of  idealistic  philosophers  is 
their  common  assignment  of  first  importance  to  the  problem  of 
knowledge,  and  this  problem  has  been,  from  the  earliest  Greek 
times  to  our  own,  primarily  the  problem  of  error.  Realism  nei- 
ther succumbs  to  this  problem  with  the  non-possumus  of  the  modern 


360  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

English  school,  nor  tries  to  explain  error  away  with  the  solemn 
circumstance  of  the  German  schools.  It  meets,  if  I  may  venture  at 
all  to  speak  for  it,1  the  problem  of  error  by  borrowing  from  logic 
and  mathematics  the  well-authenticated  distinction  between  reality 
and  being.  The  universe  is  not  all  real ;  but  the  universe  all  is. 
Two  more  distinctions,  and  we  proceed :  being  is  to  be  distin- 
guished not  merely  from  being  real,  but  from  being  true,  and  from 
being  perceived  or  thought.  Realism  has  a  just  and  proper  place 
for  the  functions  of  perception  and  thought,  but  the  subjectiv- 
ist's  contention  that  "being  means  always  in  some  sense  or  other 
[sic]  being  perceived  or  thought,"  rests  solely,  as  Perry  has  demon- 
strated,2 on  the  fallacy  of  the  ego-centric  predicament. 

3.  Contradiction  and  Being.  —  The  earliest  (and  very  ancient) 
'solution'  of  the  problem  of  error  seems  to  have  been  that  errors 
are  all  matters  of  opinion,  are  merely  subjective,  found  only  in 
consciousness:  but  that  the  objective  world  is  error-free,  so  that 
no  one  need  worry  lest  the  universe  totter  and  collapse.  This  re- 
mains to-day  the  comfortable  popular  view  of  the  matter.  Nor 
can  I  see  that  the  triumphal  progress  of  idealism  has  brought  en- 
lightenment. Rather  has  idealism  thrown  us  back  on  the  origi- 
nal difficulty  by  asserting  that  everything  is  subjective,  from 
which  the  conclusion  must  be  that  error  is  again  ubiquitous. 
Yet  many  idealists,  and  especially  the  leather-patch  school  of 
Professor  Karl  Pearson  and  his  associates,  profess  not  to  draw  this 
conclusion,  since  they  continue  to  dispose  comfortably  of  error  on 
the  ground  of  its  'subjectivity.'  It  is  true  that  Hegel  under- 
took to  treat  error  much  more  responsibly,  but  his  solution  seems 
to  have  evolved  a  checkmate  of  thought  and  intellection  uber- 
haupt,  so  that  his  followers  have  no  course  left  to  them  save  to  sing 
the  cradle-song  of  the  Absolute,  and,  so  lulled,  to  surmount  error  by 
oblivion.  Yet  error  remains  a  problem  for  persons  who  have 
kept  awake,  and  one  observes  that  the  hated  name  of  realism 

1  But  of  course  I  offer  this,  as  well  as  any  other  lines  of  argument,  as  merely  my 
personal  interpretation  and  defense  of  realism. 
*  Perry,  R.  B.,  op.  cU.,  5-14. 


CONTRADICTION  361 

suffices  to  arouse  even  the  Hegelians  to  a  disturbed  conscious- 
ness: "If  you  won't  repose  ineffably1  in  the  Absolute,  what  are 
you  going  to  do  with  error?" 

Now  it  may  be  admitted  that  'errors'  are  all  of  knowledge,  or  are 
in  experience;  but  the  important  point  is  another :  that  all  errors  are 
cases  of  contradiction  or  contrariety.  One  has  met  error  who  has  ex- 
perienced that  A  is  B  and  that  the  same  A  is  not  B.  But  the  ex- 
periencing is  not  the  significant  fact,  and  that  all  errors  are  of  knowl- 
edge is  true  merely  by  definition,  since  contrariety  or  contradiction  is 
called  '  error '  only  when  it  occurs  in  some  person's  field  of  conscious- 
ness.2 The  actual  problem  is  the  contradiction  or  contrariety  itself : 
what  is  the  significance  of  a  universe  that  holds  such  things  ?  And 
here,  once  more,  the  only  solution  which  appeals  in  practice  to  any 
one  is  the  ancient  one  :  that  only  one  of  two  incompatible  proposi- 
tions is  in  the  universe,  the  other  is  'only  subjective.'  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  every  one  of  the  recent  writers  against  realism 
centers  his  attack  about  the  problem  of  error  or  contradiction.  I 
shall  base  my  remarks  on  their  own  assumption  that  there  can  be 
no  contradiction  in  an  objective  (or  'real')  universe. 

This  last  proposition  is  always  expressed,  or  tacitly  implied, 
with  an  assurance  which  shows  that  these  gentlemen  assign  to  it 
axiomatic  validity ;  and  if  they  were  to  be  asked  how  they  know 
so  interesting  a  fact  about  the  universe,  they  would  infallibly 
reply  that  it  is  self-evident.  On  which  I  should  remark  that  so 
far  from  being  self-evident,  it  is  categorically  untrue.  "Are  you," 
say  they,  "crazy  enough  to  think  that  you  have  ever  seen  an  exist- 
ing object  move  both  up  and  down  at  the  same  moment?  Have 
you  ever  met  the  round-square,  or  the  A  that  was  at  the  same  time 
not-A?"  and  I  reply,  "No;  are  you  so  crazy  as  to  be  able  to 
think  these  objects?" 

An  answer  to  this  is,  that  while  it  may  not  be  easy  to  visualize 

1  Vide  Sheffer,  H.  M.,  Ineffable  Philosophies.  J.  of  Phil.,  Psychol,  etc.,  1909, 
6,  123-129. 

1  The  reader  must  here  avoid  the  fallacy  of  the  ego-centric  predicament,  already 
referred  to. 


362  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

or  image  an  A-not-A,  yet  that  one  can  easily  think  of  an  A  that 
should  be,  or  might  be,  also  not-A.  This  is  a  mere  defect  of 
imagery,  just  as  it  is  an  accident  of  vita  brevis  that  one  cannot 
enumerate  an  infinite  series  although  one  thinks  it  readily  enough. 
Now  this  is  the  core  of  the  matter.  It  is  not  a  "defect  of  imagery  " 
which  prevents  us  from  visualizing  the  round-square  or  the  A-not- 
A  as  readily  as  we  visualize  a  hippogriff,  the  whale  discussing 
Jonah,  or  even  a  Cook  at  the  north  pole.  The  thought  of  the 
round-square  is  a  propositioned  content  about  a  strictly  unthink- 
able IT :  —  that  it  is  to  be  square,  and  it  is  to  be  round,  and  so 
forth.  Further  than  this  even  thought  cannot  go :  even  the 
inner  eye  cannot  grasp  the  square  which  is  also  round.  One  can 
think  of  a  point  which  should  move  up  and  move  down  at  the  same 
moment,  but  when  one  images  the  point,  it  moves  either  up  or 
down,  or  the  two  successively.  Now  this  "defect  of  imagina- 
tion" is  not  a  psychological  matter  at  all,  but  rests  on  a  funda- 
mental distinction  which  symbolic  logic  and  mathematics  have 
more  or  less  recently  made  out,  between  propositions  or  postu- 
lates on  the  one  hand  and  terms  in  relation  on  the  other.  It  is 
found  here  that  propositions  may  subsist  together  in  a  set  although 
they  are  mutually  contradictory,  but  that  such  contradictory 
propositions  can  never  generate,  or  be  realized  in,  a  system  of  terms 
in  relation.  Indeed,  so  harmless,  oftentimes,  are  the  contradic- 
tions between  propositions  that  the  only  certain  test  that  proposi- 
tions are  not  contradictory  is  the  discovery  of  a  system  of  terms  in 
relation  of  which  the  propositions  all  hold  true,  or  in  which  they 
are  exemplified.  Thus  if  one  undertook  to  define  a  figure  such  that 
it  should  be  the  portion  of  a  plane  surface  included  between  three 
straight  lines ;  that  it  should  possess  four  (internal)  angles ;  that 
the  sum  of  these  should  equal  180  degrees ;  and  that  the  sum  of  its 
external  angles  should  equal  ten  times  180  degrees ;  —  one  would 
have  no  means  of  discovering  whether  a  contradiction  1  had  been 

1 1  take  no  pains  here  to  differentiate  between  contradiction  and  contrariety, 
because  both  contain  a  common  and  more  fundamental  element  of  negation,  for 
which  we  so  far  have  no  good  name,  but  which  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  this  difference 
between  sets  of  propositions  and  systems  of  terms. 


CONTRADICTION  363 

posited  except  by  appealing  to  the  corresponding  system  of  terms 
(plane,  lines,  et  ccet.)  which  such  a  set  of  postulates  undertakes  to 
define.  This  is  of  course  an  appeal  neither  to  physical  existents, 
nor  to  the  faculty  of  imagination :  nor  are  propositions  more  '  sub- 
jective'  than  terms.  This  distinction  between  sets  of  propositions 
and  systems  of  terms  is  of  the  most  profound  importance ;  it  sheds 
light,  for  instance,  on  analysis  and  synthesis,  the  meaning  of  veri- 
fication, concreteness,  empiricism,  and  on  the  triviality  of  the  '  geo- 
metrical method/  or  any  other,  when  the  prepositional  seqence  of  the 
argument  swings  free  from  the  patient  exhibition  of  terms  in  their 
relations.  Now  this  fact  that  propositions  oppose  one  another  freely 
while  such  opposition  or  contradiction  is  never  exemplified  in  a  sys- 
tem of  terms  in  relation,  does  not,  I  admit  gladly,  tell  us  all  that  we 
wish  to  know  about  contradiction  and  negation.  On  the  contrary, 
it  merely  opens  up  a  field  of  study  most  stimulating  to  the  appe- 
tite, and  one  which  at  the  present  juncture  I  conceive  to  be  the 
most  promising  of  any,  for  both  logic  and  philosophy.  But  the 
considerations  just  adduced  are  important  in  two  respects;  they 
do  not  purport  to  explain  'error'  (contradiction)  away;  and 
they  do  show  that  the  problem  of  contradiction  (error)  has  nothing 
whatsoever  to  do  with  the  problem  of  knowledge  or  epistemology. 

The  dichotomy  proposition-term,  fundamental  as  it  may  be,  co- 
incides in  no  wise  with  the  dichotomy  mind-matter,  subject-object, 
nor  yet  with  unreal-real.  Conscious  images,  like  physical  objects, 
are  terms  in  relation,  and  as  the  round  square  or  A-not-A  is  not 
found  among  physical  systems  of  terms,  so  it  is  (and  for  precisely 
the  same  reason)  not  found  among  mental  systems  of  terms.  What 
is  in  the  one  case  called  physically  impossible  ('unreal')  is  in  the 
other  case  found  to  be  mentally  impossible,  i.e,  unthinkable. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  mind  can  and  does  entertain  the  most  con- 
tradictory propositions  about  terms,  precisely  as  physical  laws, 
which  have  obviously  the  nature  of  propositions,  are  habitually 
in  a  state  of  contradiction. 

I  say  'habitually,'  although  I  know  how  shocking  a  heresy 
it  is  to  speak  of  contradiction  in  any  connection  with  the  physical 


364  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

world.  This  does  not  contain,  it  is  true,  A's  that  are  not-A's. 
Neither  does  the  mental  world  contain  them;  and  the  expression 
A-not-A,  or  round-square,  has  no  meaning  at  all  save  as  symbol 
for  a  little  pair  of  contradicting  propositions.  But  having  dis- 
covered this  valuable  fact,  apparently,  at  some  pains,  natural 
science  conceived  such  an  animus  against  the  name  'contradic- 
tion' that  it  devised  means  for  disguising  the  true  cases  of  (prepo- 
sitional) contradiction  among  natural  laws;  of  which  every  case 
of  collision,  interference,  acceleration  and  retardation,  growth 
and  decay,  equilibrium,  et  ccetera,  et  ccetera,  is  an  instance.  This 
is  as  follows.  A  law  of  motion  states  always  that  a  physical  par- 
ticle (or  series  of  them)  moves  (or  shall  move)  thus  and  so.  If 
now  two  wave-motions  are  progressing  along  the  same  straight  line 
and  toward  each  other,  there  will  be  a  moment  when  a  certain 
particle  will  be  'acted  on'  by  both  motions  at  once.  The  law  of 
one  motion  will  state  that  the  particle  moves  up  (or  shall  move 
up),  while  that  of  the  other  motion  states  that  it  moves  down 
(or  shall  move  down)  at  the  same  moment.  Each  law  opposes 
the  other,  and  although  the  relation  is  called  one  of  contrariety, 
this  contrariety  is  in  fact  more  than  contradiction;  for  if  one  law 
says  up,  the  other  not  only  says  not-up,  but  further  specifies  down 
Logic  cannot  show  a  negation  more  thorough.  And  while  the 
impossible-unthinkable  does  not  happen,  the  result  which  is  char- 
acteristic of  all  contradictions  ensues,  namely,  zero  motion ;  or  hi  the 
cases  of  different  amounts  of  energy  one  motion  is  reduced  toward 
zero  by  as  much  as  the  opposing  motion  has  energy  to  contradict  it. 
To  say  that  because  no  energy  has  been  'lost'  there  has  been  no 
contradiction  is  nothing  whatsoever  to  the  point.  Two  laws  ot 
motion  have  met  in  contradiction,  and  this  is  precisely  the  ap- 
pointed signal  for  energy  of  one  sort  to  be  transformed  Into  energy 
of  another.  Because  a  third  law  can  be  framed  (hi  terms  of  trans- 
formation, strain,  or  elasticity)  to  describe  what  shall  continue 
to  happen  when  a  contradiction  arises,  should  not  blind  us  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  not  until  the  first  two  laws  do  meet  hi  contradiction 
that  the  third  law  goes  into  operation.  The  case  is  paralleled  in 


REALITY  365 

the  game  of  chess,  where  the  laws  governing  the  moves  of  the  several 
men  often  come  in  contradiction  with  the  rule  that  no  two  men 
shall  simultaneously  occupy  one  square.  To  meet  this  case  a 
further  law  declares  that  the  second  comer  shall  'take'  or  anni- 
hilate the  earlier  occupant;  and  the  whole  game  hinges  on  such 
contradictions.  To  imagine  that  hi  this  way  contradiction  has 
been  forestalled,  is  to  do  like  the  fatuous  master  who  commands : 
"Stand  up,  but  if  you  won't  stand  up,  lie  down;  my  orders  shall 
be  obeyed."  Not  even  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  static  logic 
is  contradiction  hi  this  way  avoided;  and  modern  logic  is  not 
static.1  Contradiction  is  after  all  a  tame  and  harmless  thing,  al- 
though a  very  interesting  one.  The  pretensions  of  many  natural 
scientists  that  they  find  no  contradictions  is  uncommonly  absurd, 
because  in  fact  they  find  little  else.  That  is,  all  natural  motions  are 
the  result  of  so  many  partially  contradictory  laws  operating  together 
that  it  requires  a  fabulously  clever  technique  to  produce  a  motion 
which  is  simple  or  uncontradicted  enough  to  allow  any  one  of  the 
component  laws  (or  constant  functions)  to  be  determined.  The 
natural  scientist  may  conceive  this  as  he  likes,  but  if  our  idealist 
opponents  object  to  the  above  considerations  I  will  beg  them  to 
take  down  the  gospel  acccording  to  Kant  and  read  what  the  latter- 
day  Immanuel  had  to  say  in  his  "Essay  toward  the  Introduction 
of  the  Concept  of  Negative  Quantities  into  Natural  Science  "^ 
it  is  one,  but  only  one,  of  the  authorities  for  what  I  have  ventured 
to  present  above.  X 

The  gist  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  the  impossible-unthink- 
able never  happens  anywhere,  but  that  every  variety  of  contra- 
diction, contrariety,  repugnance,  opposition,  and  negation  which 
logic  itself  recognizes  is  quite  as  plentifully  manifested  hi  the  ob- 
jective physical  world  as  it  is  in  the  subjective  sphere  of  mind. 
A  thought,  then,  which  negates  another  thought  is  neither  more 
nor  less  significant  than  a  physical  law  which  negates  another 

1  Modern  logic  might  well  devise  a  system  of  purely  logical '  strains '  and  '  stresses,' 
not  in  order  to  conceal  the  fact  of  contradiction,  but  in  order  to  study  certain  as 
yet  little  understood  properties  of  sets  of  mutually  incompatible  postulates. 


366  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

law.     The  problem  of  _error,  as  that  of  'reality,'  is  in  no  way 
involved  in  the  problem  of  knowledge. 

Now  the  image  in  consciousness  does  not  assert  anything  about 
itself,  nor  does  the  realist,  as  it  seems  to  me,  assert  of  it  that  it 
is  necessarily  real;  still  less  would  he  assert  that  all  the  preposi- 
tional contents  of  consciousness  are  real.  But  what  I  suppose 
that  realism  insists  on  is  that  every  content,  whether  term  or 
proposition,  real  or  unreal,  subsists  of  its  own  right  in  the  all-inclu- 
sive universe  of  being ;  it  has  being  as  any  mathematical  or  physi- 
cal term  or  proposition  has  being;  and  that  this  being  is  not 
"subjective  in  its  nature"  (a  phrase  indeed  to  which  in  this  con- 
nection I  can  attach  no  meaning).  I  believe,  further,  that  no 
content  is  'constituted'  by  a  metaphysical  knower  or  ego,  for 
I  believe  that  no  knower,  or  ego,  such  as  metaphysics  means, 
exists.  I  believe  also  that  no  conscious  content  is  'constituted' 
even  by  the  knowing  process,  in  the  sense  commonly  attached  by 
metaphysics  to  the  word  'constitute.'  If  the  knowing  process 
ever  constitutes  its  content,  it  is,  I  believe,  only  as  a  ripple  of  water 
in  assuming  successive  forms  may  be  said  to  constitute  these 
forms  (if  that  appears  either  significant  or  interesting  to  any  one, 
as  it  does  not  to  me).  But  particularly  meaningless  is  the  asser- 
tion of  idealism  that  a  mental  content  is  'subjective'  in  its  sub- 
stance or  nature,  or  is  constituted  by  a  metaphysical  knower 
or  ego. 

As  to  what  reality  is,  I  take  no  great  interest ;  nor  do  most  other 
persons,  for  if  they  had  done  so,  they  would  have  taken  more 
pains  to  define  it  sharply  as  against  the  equally  and  perhaps 
even  more  prevalent  unreality.  But  if  challenged,  I  should  hazard 
the  guess  that  perhaps  reality  is  some  very  comprehensive  system 
of  terms  in  relation.  For  by  reality  we  seem  to  mean  the  thing 
most  remote  from  contradiction,  and  this  is  with  certainty  found 
only  in  systems  of  terms.  This  would  make  reality  closely  related 
to  what  logic  knows  as  'existence.'  If  this  is  correct,  probably 
all  of  the  terms  found  in  the  physical  world,  also  some  and  possibly 
all  of  the  terms  found  in  minds,  are  real.  But  all  this,  so  far  as 


REALITY  367 

I  know,  has  been  far  too  little  studied.  Certain  it  is  that  unreality 
is  no  more  subjective  than  reality;  for  a  thing  may  be  objective 
and  yet  unreal,  as  is  commonly  asserted  of  certain  numbers  and 
of  some  systems  of  geometry. 

4.  Contradiction  and  Realism.  —  Let  us  now  return  to  some 
arguments  of  our  opponents.  In  a  somewhat  over-ingenious 
paper  l  Professor  Lovejoy  brings  up  at  length  the  case  of  hallu- 
cination. "While  it  lasts,  the  hallucination  is  for  the  victim  of 
it  as  good  'content'  as  any  other  of  his  perceptions."  But  "it 
was  not  at  the  time  an  object  perceived  by  others.  ...  In  fact, 
it  turns  out  that  the  other  percipients  at  that  time  perceived  as 
vacant,  or  as  otherwise  occupied,  the  very  space  which  the  hallu- 
cinatory object  ostensibly  occupied  .  .  .  and  since  the  testimony 
of  many  witnesses  and  of  the  general  uniformities  of  experience 
is  against  his  object,  the  victim  of  the  hallucination,  when  he  re- 
covers, proceeds  to  call  his  object  somehow  'unreal,'  and  to  declare 
that  the  '  content '  that  was  truly  in  the  space  in  question  was  that 
beheld  by  the  other  percipients.  ...  Be  it  observed  that  the 
corrective  judgment,  through  the  making  of  which  the  concep- 
tion of  consciousness  is  generated,  predicates  '  unreality ' —  now 
interpreted  as  'existence  merely  for  consciousness'  —  of  the  ob- 
ject of  the  hallucination  at  the  moment  when  that  object  was  present" 
(p.  595).  Professor  Lovejoy  grants  it  as  possible  that  the  "new 
realism  .  .  .  does  not  maintain  that  the  same  portion  of  real  space 
can  be  at  once  both  empty  and  filled,"  but  he  does  not  see  "what 
account  a  new  realist  can  consistently  give  of  the  status  of  the  hallu- 
cinatory object  at  that  time,  or  of  the  difference  between  it  and 
the  coexisting  'real'  objects"  (p.  596).  Now  I  should  not  call 
the  hallucinatory  object  necessarily  'unreal,'  still  less  an  existent 
"merely  for  consciousness,"  nor  need  anybody  hasten  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  other  object  is  'real'  since  collective  hallucina- 
tions are  also  possible.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  a  "corrective  judg- 
ment" (i.e.  a  proposition)  in  opposition  to  one  or  more  previous 

1  Lovejoy,  A.  O.,  Reflections  of  a  Temporalist  on  the  New  Realism.  /.  of  Phil., 
Pnychol.,  etc.,  1911,  8,  589-599. 


368  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

judgments  is  that  which  carries  the  difficulty,  and  I  look  on  a  con- 
flict of  judgments  precisely  as  on  any  other  prepositional  conflict. 

If  now  it  is  asked  how  one  surveying  the  whole  situation  (as 
if  this  were  possible  without  implicitly  or  subconsciously  making 
many  judgments  x)  can  interpret  it  in  the  spirit  of  realism,  the 
answer  is  simple.  One  interprets  it  precisely  as  Professor  Love- 
joy  probably  interprets  mirrored  space  in  connection  with  the  space 
behind  the  mirror.  The  case  is  parallel  to  our  own  in  all  respects 
germane  to  our  argument;  and  I  have  yet  to  hear  that  mirrored 
space  gives  rise  to  grave  difficulties  about  reality  or  about  "ex- 
istence merely  for  consciousness."  It  does,  however,  show  in 
exactly  the  same  degree  to  which  hallucinations  show  that  "the 
same  portion  of  real  space  can  be  at  once  both  empty  and  filled." 
Lest  the  opponent  have  no  ready  interpretation  of  such  a  mystery, 
I  will  offer  one. 

Mirror-space  is  a  cross-section  of  ordinary  space  and  of  the  bodies 
therein ;  it  has  all  the  pure-space  properties  of  the  other  save  for 
a  geometrically  definable  mode  of  reversal,  and  it  includes  the 
surfaces  and  shapes  of  the  mirrored  objects  (reversed)  with  their 
colors.  But  it  does  not  include  the  ponderability  and  many 
other  physical  properties  of  these  objects.  As  in  the  case  of  all 
cross-sections  (of  which  one  case  is  consciousness),  a  new  mani- 
fold is  formed,  consisting  of  certain  parts,  and  integral  parts,  of 
objects;  and  here,  as  usually,  such  partition  and  analysis  of  the 
objects  reveals  that  they  are  made  up  of  elements  which  are  not 
in  the  popular  sense  'physical,'  but  rather  conceptual  or  mathe- 
matical, or,  as  I  prefer  to  say,  neutral  —  because  neither  physical 
nor  mental.  These  mirrored  parts  remain  objects,  but  they  lack 
many  properties/such  as  ponderability,  et  ccetera,  which  pertain  only 
to  the  original  entire  object  in  its  natural  state  of  organization.  All 
this  is  precisely  what  natural  science  has  discovered  from  its  own 
analysis  of  the  same  objects;  —  matter  analyzes  out  completely 
into  mathematical  entities,  and  leaves  no  residue  by  way  of  little 

1  Cf .  the  fourth  chapter  of  Schopenhauer's  Fourfold  Root  of  the  Principle  of 
Sufficient  Reason. 


REALITY  369 

material  brickbats.  A  block  of  wood  is  ponderable,  et  ccetera, 
but  the  shape,  volume,  physical  masses,  and  electrical  charges 
of  which  it  is  composed  are  not  ponderable ;  ponderability  being 
a  property  of,  and  deducible  from,  just  these  things  in  their 
organized  completeness.  This  circumstance  gives  rise  to  what 
Professor  Lovejoy  and  others  have  remarked  as  the  "wide  deno- 
tation which  the  realist  gives  to  the  term  object,"  a  denotation 
which  physical  science  itself  imposes.  It  is  true  that  in  the  case 
of  mirrored  space  reproduction  is  involved,  but  it  is  a  reproduc- 
tion of  identicals  without  change  of  their  'nature';  and  while 
it  presents,  indeed,  interesting  problems  concerning  particulars 
and  universals,  it  affords  no  footing  for  speculations  as  to  a  sub- 
j  ective  realm  of  representations.  And  no  more  do  the  cases  in  which 
consciousness  involves  reproduction  (as  it  sometimes  but  by  no 
means  always  does);  they  are  invariably  entirely  comparable  to 
physical  reproductions.  Yet  they  have  given  rise  to  no  end  of 
silly  talk,  which,  when  applied  to  the  equally  eligible  case  of  the 
mirror,  reads  as  follows :  "  You  say  that  the  mirror  does  not  alter 
its  objects.  Where  then  does  it  get  its  reproduction  of  them? 
Must  it  not  make  them  ?  But  if  it  makes  them,  they  must  derive 
their  nature  from  the  mirror  itself,  and  be  intrinsically  subjec- 
tive mirror-stuff.  The  mirrored  reality  cannot  be  other  than  of 
the  nature  of  the  mirroring  spirit."  l  Or  if  there  are  two  actively 
imaging  mirrors  we  read:  "Data  which  are  qualitatively  dif- 
ferent cannot  be  numerically  identical;  and  no  'this'  in  the  one 
mirror  can  ever  be  exactly  the  same,  qualitatively,  as  any  'this' 
in  the  other  mirror  at  the  same  moment,  could  not  be  unless  the 
two  mirrors  were  exactly  alike  and  occupied  the  same  place  in 
space,  i.e.  in  idealistic  terms,  unless  every  element  pictured  in  the 
two  mirrors  were  identical ;  hi  which  case  they  would  be  one  and 
the  same  mirror."  2  Thus  it  is  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  idealists 
that  two  mirrors  cannot  image  the  same  object.  I  say,  then,  that 
the  case  of  hallucinations,  as  cited  by  Professor  Lovejoy,  is  paral- 

1  Cf.  Carr,  H.  W.,  Proc.  of  the  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1908,  8,  128. 
*  Cf.  Drake,  D.,  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol,  etc.,  1911,  8,  369. 


370  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

leled  by  such  cases  as  that  of  mirrored  space,  wherein  sundry  mir- 
rored objects  occupy  the  same  spatial  positions  as  are  occupied 
by  other  'real'  objects  situated  behind  the  mirror.  It  is  admitted 
that  such  physical  cases  give  rise  to  no  difficulties  about  '  unreality ' 
or  a  separate  subjective  status.  In  some  cases  of  hallucination 
and  illusion  the  error  consists  solely  in  the  entertainment  in  the 
mind  of  mutually  contradictory  propositions;  and  while  one  of 
these  may  be  for  some  reason  preferred  or  assigned  a  superior  value, 
neither  is  more  subjective  than  the  other ;  nor  are  both  subjective, 
because,  as  we  have  seen,  the  entire  universe  is  brimming  full  of 
just  such  mutually  contradictory  propositions.  In  other  cases 
of  hallucination  and  illusion  (as  with  the  two  eyes  asquint)  a 
certain  actual  interpenetration  of  terms  in  relation  is  experienced, 
which  is  precisely  paralleled  by  the  interpenetration  of  mirrored 
objects  with  the  objects  behind  the  mirror.  This  is  not  a  case  of 
the  impossible-unthinkable  realized,  but  it  is  merely  a  case  which 
shows  that  the  neutral  cross-sections  of  objects  possess  proper- 
ties of  interpenetrability  and  so  forth  which  differ  from  the 
properties  of  the  entire  objects.  So,  too,  fire  burns,  while  the  idea 
of  fire  does  not,  just  as  it  still  burns  although  the  magnetic  prop- 
erties of  flame  do  not.  Thus,  whatever  practical  terminology  may 
be  found  most  convenient  for  the  case  of  hallucinations,  these 
afford  no  grounds  for  an  argument  toward  subjectivism.  The  real- 
istic account  of  them  is  clear,  simple,  and  straightforward,  even  if 
it  is  admitted  that  reproduction  is  involved.  In  many  if  not  most 
cases  of  consciousness  reproduction  is  not  involved,  and  the  realistic 
account  is  still  simpler. 

A  word  may  here  be  in  place  on  the  realist's  "wide  denotation 
of  the  word  object  or  thing."  A  common  anti-realistic  argument 
is  that  since  fire  burns  and  the  idea  of  fire  does  not,  since  an  ob- 
ject has  no  perspective  foreshortening,  while  the  visual  image  of 
it  has,  an  object  has  definite  position  in  space,  and  the  memory 
image  of  it  has  not,  and  position  in  time,  while  the  idea  comes 
always  subsequently ;  —  that  for  these  reasons  realism  makes 
itself  absurd  in  asserting  that  the  idea  is  'qualitatively'  and  in 


CONSCIOUS  CROSS-SECTION  371 

many  cases  'numerically'  the  object.  I  think  that  it  was 
probably  this  argument  mainly  which  led  Mr.  G.  E.  Moore * 
to  the  view  that  consciousness  and  its  objects  are  distinct  exis- 
tents,  that  even  color  qualities  are  never  content  of  sensations, 
and  then  on  to  a  belief  hi  a  fundamental  unresolvable  relation  of 
awareness ;  from  all  of  which  I  should  emphatically  dissent.  Now 
to  the  argument  above  stated  it  might  be  replied  that  fire  burns 
but  the  shape  of  the  flame  does  not,  that  an  object  is  not  fore- 
shortened but  that  its  geometrical  projections  are,  that  the  object 
has  position  in  space  but  that,  say,  the  nth  derivative  of  its  physi- 
cal motion  has  not,  and  that  while  the  object  has  position  in  time 
the  value  of  its  physical  mass  is  timeless.  Thus  the  argument 
rests  entirely  on  a  singularly  crude  brickbat  notion  of  physical 
object.  This  is  that  the  object  is  a  sort  of  indivisible  brickbat, 
of  which  any  and  every  property  of  the  object  can  under  any  and 
all  circumstances  be  predicated;  or  that  if  the  brickbat  has  parts, 
all  of  its  properties  can  be  predicated  of  each  of  its  parts.  The  ab- 
surdity of  this  is  patent,  and  yet  one  can  see  how  far  such  an  error 
may  go  from  the  astonishing  words  of  Dr.  Drake,2  who  after  re- 
marking the  many  aspects  presented  to  different  spectators  by  a 
tree,  continues,  "If  we  believe,  then,  that  each  of  these  'thises' 
that  we  have  in  experience  is  a  permanent  existence  [he  should 
say  a  subsisting  entity],  we  have  a  marvelously  multiplied  world. 
A  thousand,  a  million  different  'thises'  permanently  exist  as  'this 
tree  ! '  Disparate  as  they  are,  they  cannot  be  squeezed  down  into 
one  simple  object  [indivisible  brickbat],  and  we  have  a  world 
reduplicated  ad  infinitum.  .  .  .  We  ['critical  realists']  give  him 
[the  'natural  man']  a  simple,  homogenous  external  world;  'nat- 
ural' realism  does  not."  I  should  hope  not !  And  I  can  conceive 
no  better  advertisement  for  what  Dr.  Drake  calls  'natural' 
realism.  But  what,  meanwhile,  can  he  possibly  be  thinking  of 
the  infinity  of  actual  geometrical  projections  of  his  tree,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  innumerable  other  actual  relations?  Can  these 

1  Moore,  G.  E.,  The  Refutation  of  Idealism.     Mind,  1903,  N.  S.,  12,  433-453. 
1  Op.  cit.,  p.  370. 


372  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

all  be  "squeezed  down  into  one  simple  object "  ?  Surely  the  tree 
is,  with  its  relations,  all  of  these  things :  and  even  more.  For,  as 
Professor  Alexander  says,1  of  a  straight  stick  which  looks  bent  when 
a  part  of  it  is  under  water,  "There  is  illusion  only  if  we  deny  that 
the  bent  and  the  straight  appearance  in  the  two  different  sets  of 
conditions  belong  to  the  same  stick."  Certainly  they  belong 
to  it,  and  so  does  every  other  of  its  projective  properties  (and  these 
are  not  merely  spatial,  but  temporal  and  logical  as  well).  For 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  while  the  object  itself,  if  a  physical 
thing,  is  far  from  simple,  we  are  always  perceiving  it  in  a  compli- 
cated setting  of  (spatial,  temporal,  and  logical)  relations,  which 
is  a  still  more  complicated  thing.  But  the  conscious  cross-sec- 
tion is  always  a  group  of  the  integral  (neutral)  components  of  the 
object  and  of  its  innumerable  relations.  And  since,  firstly,  it 
is  seldom  possible  to  say  just  where  the  object  itself  terminates 
and  its  relations  to  other  entities  commences  (Is,  for  instance, 
the  first  derivative  of  motion  a  part  of  the  moving  object  or  one 
of  the  object's  relations?),  and  since,  secondly,  any  discrimin- 
able  entity  may  be  'object'  of  consciousness  (i.e.  a  member  of 
the  class  of  entities  to  which  the  nervous  system  specifically  re- 
sponds), realism  has  good  grounds  for  extending  the  denotation  of 
object  or  thing. 

This  completes  my  argument,  and  more  than  fills  the  space 
allotted  to  me  in  this  volume.  The  picture  which  I  wish  to  leave 
is  of  a  general  universe  of  being  in  which  all  things  physical,  mental, 
and  logical,  propositions  and  terms,  existent  and  non-existent,  false 
and  true,  good  and  evil,  real  and  unreal  subsist.  The  entities  of 
this  universe  have  no  substance,  but  if  the  spirit  is  weak  to  under- 
stand this,  then  let  the  flesh,  for  a  season,  here  predicate  a  neutral 
substance.  These  entities  are  related  by  external  relations,  and 
man  has  as  yet  no  just  ground  for  doubting  that  the  analytic 
method  of  empirical  science  can  proceed  without  limit  in  its  in- 
vestigation of  this  universe.  The  dimensions  of  this  universe  are 
more  than  the  three  dimensions  of  space  and  the  one  of  time :  how 
1  Alexander,  S.,  Proc.  of  the  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1910,  N.  S.,  xo,  11. 


CONSCIOUS  CROSS-SECTION  373 

many  more  is  not  known.  The  line  that  separates  the  existent  and 
the  non-existent,  or  the  false  and  the  true,  or  good  and  evil,  or 
the  real  from  the  unreal,  seldom  coincides,  and  never  significantly 
coincides  with  the  line  that  distinguishes  mental  and  non-mental, 
subject  and  object,  knower  and  known.  A  mind  or  consciousness 
is  a  class  or  group  of  entities  within  the  subsisting  universe,  as  a 
physical  object  is  another  class  or  group.  One  entity  or  complex 
of  entities  can  belong  to  two  or  more  classes  or  groups  at  the  same 
time,  as  one  point  can  be  at  the  intersection  of  two  or  more  lines : 
so  that  an  entity  can  be  an  integral  part  of  a  physical  object,  of  a 
mathematical  manifold,  the  field  of  reality,  and  one  or  any  number 
of  consciousnesses,  at  the  same  time.  As  the  class  of  physical 
objects  is  defined  within  the  subsistent  universe  by  principles 
known  to  science,  so  the  class  of  consciousnesses  is  defined  within 
this  universe  by  principles  which  are  partly  known,  and  which 
are  coming  to  be  more  fully  known,  by  empirical  psychology. 
A  consciousness  is  the  group  of  (neutral)  entities  to  which  a 
nervous  system,  both  at  one  moment  and  in  the  course  of  its  life 
history,  responds  with  a  specific  response. 


SOME  REALISTIC   IMPLICATIONS    OF   BIOLOGY 


SOME  REALISTIC  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 
BY  WALTER  B.  PITKIN 

THE  following  investigation  falls  into  two  parts.  The  first 
part  is  a  formal  analysis  of  several  fundamental  types  of  organic 
action.  Here,  certain  facts  appear  which  decisively  refute  several 
biological,  psychological,  and  metaphysical  theories.  The  second 
part,  which  begins  with  Section  IV,  will  offer  an  incomplete  formal 
analysis  of  the  cognitive  situation  and  a  hypothesis  of  consciousness. 

The  five  chief  points  herein  to  be  urged  are :  (1)  That  theories 
about  life  and  mind  have  generally  been  based  upon  erroneous, 
more  or  less  naiive  opinions  about  the  nature  of  things  and  relations. 
(2)  That  anti-realistic  hypotheses  in  biology  or  derived  from  biol- 
ogy owe  their  strength  either  to  (a)  the  erroneous  opinions  mentioned 
above  or  (6)  a  false  emphasis  upon  the  facts  of  introspective  psy- 
chology. (3)  That  the  ordinary  methods  of  analysis  'and  re- 
search pursued  by  natural  scientists  are  rapidly  yielding  a  coherent, 
adequate  account  of  life  and  mind,  without  invoking  either  intui- 
tion or  transcendent  entities.  (4)  That  a  formal  analysis  of  the 
organic  situation  discloses  three  basic  factors  (each  complex)  re- 
lated as  are  the  three  factors  in  projective  geometry.  (5)  That 
an  interpretation  of  the  cognitive  function  in  terms  of  these  three 
factors  largely  reconciles  at  least  four  modern  theories  of  conscious- 
ness and  also  makes  clear  how  errors,  illusions,  and  hallucinations 
are  not  made  by  consciousness  nor  are  peculiar  to  it,  but  are 
necessary  features  of  a  projected  physical  system. 

This  last  topic  is  introduced,  less  to  convince  the  reader  than 
to  offer  a  definite,  positive  theory  which  may  be  criticized.  Real- 
istic studies  have,  by  necessity,  been  overwhelmingly  polemical ; 
but  they  should  not  continue  so.  Reconstruction  must  begin ;  and 
a  theory  of  life  and  mind  must  be  worked  out  which  dispenses  with 
the  old,  discredited  categories  of  idealistic  psychology,  such  as 

377 


378  IMPLICATIONS   OF  BIOLOGY 

'mental  states/  'subject-object  polarity/  'creative  synthesis/  and 
the  like.  Now  it  is  evident  that  the  first  attempts  to  slough  off 
these  notions  will  be  not  only  difficult,  but  full  of  strange  writhings. 
They  will  be  no  less  violent  than  an  endeavor  to  exchange  the  parts 
of  speech  in  one's  native  tongue  and  to  use  nouns  for  adverbs,  or 
adverbs  for  prepositions.  For  the  older  manner  of  thinking  is 
woven  into  our  unconscious  'universes  of  discourse.'  Because  of 
this,  any  genuinely  realistic  hypothesis  of  consciousness  to-day 
must  be  obscure;  and  it  is  almost  certain  to  contain  difficulties 
which  the  author  himself  cannot  clearly  sense.  It  must,  there- 
fore, be  submitted  in  fear  and  trembling. 


THE   BIOLOGICAL  ATTACK   ON   REALISM 

THE  strongest  influences  against  realism  to-day  emanate  from 
the  biological  sciences.  Only  a  few  years  ago,  it  was  physics  and 
mathematics  which  made  the  natural  world-view  seem  unten- 
able ;  and  before  them  it  was  logic  and  psychology.  The  objec- 
tions which  these  sciences  have  brought  have  been  cleared  away 
in  the  previous  essays  of  this  volume;  the  inaccurate  descrip- 
tions and  defective  logic  underlying  those  objections  must  now 
be  moderately  clear.  But,  from  a  new  quarter,  there  arises  a 
host  of  adversaries,  declaring  that  the  unanswerable  disproof  of 
realism  is  found  in  the  simple  life-processes. 

At  least  three  lines  of  research  lead  up  to  this  assertion.  The 
first  lies  wholly  within  the  biological  sciences ;  it  has  been  followed 
by  men  whose  intimate  knowledge  of  life-processes  commands  re- 
spect. Hans  Driesch  is  the  modern  leader  of  this  movement. 
His  Gifford  lectures  on  'The  Science  and  Philosophy  of  the  Or- 
ganism' 1  are  a  remarkably  thorough,  systematic  attempt  to 
establish  idealistic  vitalism  on  biological  evidences. 

The  second  line  of  research  proceeds  from  psychology  to  biology. 
The  immediate  data  of  consciousness,  when  properly  described, 

1  2  vols.,  London,  1908. 


THE  BIOLOGICAL  ATTACK  379 

afford  a  new  basis  for  interpreting  life  processes ;  and  the  latter, 
when  reinterpreted,  reveal  a  cosmos  not  composed  of  distinct 
characters,  a  flux  wherein  everything  interpenetrates  everything 
else.  All  distinctions  are  products  of  a  'vital  force'  and  serve 
only  for  organic  controls.  To  this  hypothesis  comes  Henri  Berg- 
son,  in  his  now  famous  trilogy.1  The  third  line  of  research  yields 
a  formal  analysis  of  the  fundamental  biological  situation.  It  is 
not  a  theory  about  life-processes.  It  is  rather  a  simple  description 
of  (a)  the  situation  in  which  conduct  arises,  and  (6)  the  direction 
and  character  of  conduct.  It  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  bio- 
logical explanation  of  conduct  that  the  equation  and  the  graph 
of  a  given  trajectory  bear  to  an  explanation  of  the  chemical  con- 
stitution of  the  nitroglycerine  that  hurls  the  projectile.  The 
leader  of  this  movement  is  Dewey,  whose  book  on  'The  Study  of 
Ethics ' 2  was  the  first  formal  analysis  3  of  conduct  ever  attempted. 
These  three  lines  of  research  terminate  in  as  many  anti-realistic 
hypotheses.  Driesch  concludes  that  the  entire  'content'  of  ex- 
perience is  created  by  the  Ego,  in  the  same  manner  as  Kant  held. 
Bergson  believes  that  there  is  an  objective  flux  which  constitutes 
the  environment  of  the  'vital  force/  and  also  that  in  primitive 
perception  some  of  its  characters  are  immediately  presented;  but 
he  insists  that  all  discreteness  is  produced  by  the  'vital  force/ 
and  hence  that  not  only  the  differences  between  individual  per- 
cepts, but  also  all  concepts,  are  'static/  'condensations/  'con- 
venient abstractions.'  Dewey  is  by  all  odds  the  most  realistic. 
He  accepts  as  an  ultimate  the  biological  situation  (i.e.  an  environ- 
ment and  an  'agent/  the  former  acting  upon  the  latter,  and  the 
latter  reacting  upon  the  former) ;  moreover,  he  regards  perception 
as  a  'natural  event'  on  a  par  with  a  thunderstorm,  in  that  its 
characters  are  not  created  by  the  percipient.  He  draws  the  real- 
istic line,  though,  at  cases  of  knowledge,  which,  he  says,  are  wholly 

1  Essai  sur  les  Donnees  Imm6diatea  de  la  Conscience,  Paris,  1888,  Matiere  et 
Memoire,  1908,  and  L'Evolution  Cr6atrice,  Paris,  1909. 

*  Ann  Arbor,  1897. 

*  For  a  fuller  description  of  formal  analysis,  cf.  Spaulding,  156.     The  meaning 
of  '  formal '  in  this  connection  must  be  carefully  guarded. 


380  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

different  from  perception.  Theories  and  their  constituent  ideas 
are  genuine  constructions  of  the  thinker.  They  have  no  existence 
apart  from  him,  any  more  than  a  mowing  machine  has.  The 
stuff  out  of  which  the  machine  is  fashioned  is  indubitably  physical, 
but  the  arrangement  and  all  its  efficiencies  are  a  result  of  thinking ; 
it  would  therefore  be  absurd  to  allege  that  somehow  in  the  stuff 
the  mowing  machine  is  contained  (implied,  potentially  present). 
Now,  what  iron  and  hickory  are  to  the  machine,  percepts  are  to 
knowledge. 

The  realist  cannot  count  his  case  won  until  he  has  disproved 
the  anti-realistic  inf  erences  of  these  three  investigators.  He  must 
therefore  scrutinize  just  enough  of  their  deductions  to  show  the 
complete  independence  of  all  things  thought  of.1  Now,  to  discuss 
the  relation  of  agent  to  environment,  we  must  agree  on  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  situation  under  debate.  This  description  should  enable 
us  to  effect  a  division  of  the  question,  if  the  latter  proves  complex. 
If  the  environment  is  a  hazy  entity,  it  must  be  cleared  up ;  if  it 
is  a  complex,  its  simple  constituents  must  be  discerned  and  their 
relations  to  one  another  indicated.  Likewise  with  the  agent : 
whether  we  are  to  mean  by  that  term  the  whole  organism,  or  a  part 
of  it,  or  something  'behind'  the  organism,  or  something  else  must 
be  settled  before  another  step  can  be  profitably  taken.  All  this, 
of  course,  is  no  explanation  of  any  biological  happening.  It  is 
only  a  clear  visioning  of  what  happens.  It  is  not  complete  insight, 
but  only  accurate  description  of  as  much  as  is  described  at  all.  To 
give  this  is  our  first  task. 

II 

FORMAL  ANALYSIS  OF  THE   BIOLOGICAL   SITUATION 

NATURALLY  inspecting  animals  and  their  circumstances  of  life, 
we  find :  — 

1 :  that  they  exist  in  a  world  larger  than  themselves. 
2:  that  this  world  sets  for  them  certain  difficulties. 

1  For  the  sense  in  which  '  independence  '  is  here  used,  cf.  Perry's  essay. 


THE  SITUATION  ANALYZED  381 

3 :  that  some  individuals  overcome  these  difficulties. 

4 :  that  those  which  signally  overcome  the  difficulties  differ,  in 
some  observable  respects,  from  those  which  do  not. 

5 :  that  the  two  phases  of  an  organism,  namely  its  structure  and 
its  functions,  are  very  closely  correlated,  and  perhaps  absolutely. 
(Structure  is  the  arrangement  and  character  of  the  parts  or  ele- 
ments of  the  organism ;  function  is  the  natural  operation  of  these 
under  the  circumstances  of  existence.) 

6:  that  both  structure  and  function  are,  in  all  save  the  very 
lowest  organisms,  differentiated.  There  are,  in  a  given  animal, 
many  structures,  and  each  does  something  peculiar.  Each  such 
structure  is  called  an  organ. 

7:  that  what  a  given  organ  does  depends  upon  at  least  three 
factors :  (a)  its  own  total  character  (especially  its  acquired  char- 
acter) ;  (&)  its  relation  to  other  organs  (i.e.  its  connections  with 
them  and  their  own  total  character  at  the  given  moment;  and 
(c)  those  influences  from  the  environment  which  affect  the  organ, 
at  the  moment. 

8 :  that  both  the  structure  and  the  function  of  an  organ  vary, 
in  a  more  or  less  measurable  way,  with  some  variations  in  the  ex- 
ternal stimulus. 

All  these  are  simply  observed  features  of  the  situation ;  they  are 
not  an  explanation  of  anything,  nor  does  our  acceptance  of  them 
depend  upon  any  particular  theory  of  life  processes.  On  the  con- 
trary, all  theories  about  the  latter  are  only  attempts  to  explain 
these  peculiarities  in  their  many  concrete  forms.  A  hypothesis 
which  asserted  or  implied  the  non-existence  of  any  one  of  these 
would  not  be  dealing  with  the  biological  situation  at  all.  This 
becomes  more  obvious,  as  soon  as  we  force  a  special  interpretation. 
Suppose,  for  instance,  that  a  biologist  were  asked  to  explain  how 
an  elephant  comes  to  grow  a  trunk.  If  the  learned  man  assured 
you  that  there  wasn't  any  elephant,  or  that  what  you  called  its 
trunk  was  only  a  product  of  your  own  mind,  you  might  be  inter- 
ested and  perhaps  enlightened ;  but  you  would  not  be  enlightened 


382  IMPLICATIONS  OF   BIOLOGY 

on  the  subject  of  your  inquiry.  His  assertion  would  be  irrele- 
vant Were  it  true,  it  would  not  dispense  with  your  question; 
for  you  would  still  wish  to  know  how  in  a  world  of  illusion 
an  illusory  elephant  comes  to  have  an  illusory  trunk.  The  crea- 
ture surely  does  grow  a  trunk,  no  less  regularly  than  before ;  and 
the  trunk  has  certain  definite,  constant  peculiarities.  You  ask 
for  an  explanation  of  this  particular  situation.  It  is  unprofit- 
able, then,  to  be  told  that  the  terms  of  this  dynamic  relation  have 
a  different  status  from  that  which  you  may  have  assigned  to 
them ;  for  you  have  asked,  not  about  the  status  of  the  terms,  but 
about  the  origins  of  the  relation  between  them. 

Let  us  first  consider  the  reciprocal  influences  of  the  organism 
and  the  environment.  In  what  manner  does  the  one  alter  the 
other?  Precisely  what  is  changed,  in  a  given  situation?  Wo 
must  describe  specific  reactions  and  their  stimuli,  and  find  out 
whether  they  reciprocally  transform  each  other;  and,  if  so,  what 
the  general  nature  of  the  transformation  is :  and,  secondly,  we 
must  ask  whether  the  transformations  we  may  find  are  sufficiently 
profound  to  warrant  the  inference  that  any  (or  certain)  entities 
which  men  perceive  or  establish  by  thinking  are  strictly  consti- 
tuted by  the  act  of  perceiving  or  thinking. 

1.  Simple  description  of  some  stimuli  and  the  reactions  they  in- 
duce . — 

A.  What  is  the  descriptive  distinction  between  stimulus  and  reac- 
tion ? 

In  distinguishing  stimulus  from  reaction,  we  have  no  right  to 
smuggle  in  any  characteristic  which  is  only  inferred.  This  rule 
of  formal  analysis  compels  us  to  admit  that  the  precise  limit  of  a 
stimulus  action  cannot  be  pointed  out ;  nor  can  the  origin  of  the 
reaction.  We  are  not  even  free  to  say  that  all  processes  within 
the  organism  are  reaction  processes,  in  the  strict  sense.  Many 
may  be  merely  conduction  processes,  serving  only  to  carry  a  stimu- 
lus to  some  further  sensitive  region,  at  which  the  reaction  is  set 
up.  A  number  of  organic  events  seem  to  be  this  type.  For  in- 


STIMULUS  AND  REACTION  383 

stance,  some  experiments  indicate  that  the  nucleus  of  the  single 
cell  is  the  sensitive  part  from  which  all  reflexes  originate.  If  this 
is  true,  then  the  other  regions  of  the  cell  serve  as  mechanisms  for 
bringing  in  to  the  nucleus  certain  influences  from  without,  or  else 
for  effecting  the  adjustment  which  the  nucleus  initiates.  But,  as 
Pfeffer  and  Delage  have  pointed  out,  this  is  only  a  hypothesis; 
and  it  has  some  serious  difficulties.  We  cannot  admit  it  here,  then. 

Nevertheless  we  can  describe  stimulus  and  reaction  accurately 
enough  to  distinguish  them  without  equivocation.  The  stimulus 
includes  whatever  acts  upon  the  reagent  so  that  the  latter  acts 
with  reference  to  the  former.  That  is,  not  every  influence  acting 
upon  the  organism  is  a  stimulus.  Thus,  the  pull  of  the  moon  upon 
a  man's  heart  and  the  action  of  terrestrial  magnetism  on  his  neural 
currents  would  not  be  stimuli.  For  neither  sets  up  any  reaction, 
nor  does  the  organism  behave  in  any  specific  manner  toward  either. 
But  the  action  of  gravitation  on  the  semicircular  canals  is  a  stimu- 
lus, and  so  too  in  geotropic  plants.  For  here  there  is  a  reaction 
to  differences  in  gravitational  pulls. 

Another  point  to  notice  is  that  stimuli  are  not  exclusively  extra- 
organic,  nor  are  they  nothing  but  stimuli.  The  poisons  generated 
during  fatigue  are,  with  reference  to  the  moments  succeeding  their 
generation,  true  stimuli.  So  far  as  we  are  now  concerned,  they 
do  not  differ  generically  from  bacterial  toxins.  There  may  be 
instances  of  a  given  influence  being,  at  the  same  instant,  both  a 
stimulus  and  the  product  of  a  reaction.  In  such  a  situation  there 
is  no  mystery  or  contradiction ;  for  the  influence  is  not  both  stimu- 
lus and  reaction  product  in  the  same  sense.  It  is  the  stimulus  of 
one  reaction  and  the  product  of  another,  the  two  reactions  going 
on  simultaneously. 

The  reaction  is  whatever  alters  some  part,  element,  or  action 
of  the  organism  in  relation  to  the  stimulus.  It  is  not  to  be  identi- 
fied with  every  effect  of  an  extra-organic  influence  upon  the  body. 
Many  a  bodily  motion  and  change  is  not  a  reaction,  although  its 
cause  is  an  incoming  force.  For  instance :  a  man  falls  to  the 
ground  under  the  shock  of  a  violent  blow  in  the  face ;  his  motion 


384  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

is  no  reaction,  for  it  is  a  mere  effect,  not  that  peculiar  kind  which 
refers  back  to  its  cause  somehow.  Were  he  to  struggle  to  keep 
his  footing,  though,  he  would  in  that  measure  be  reacting. 

There  is  nothing  to  hinder  a  given  reaction  from  being,  at  one 
and  the  same  time,  an  adjustment  to  a  stimulus  and  also  a  stimulus 
to  other  reagents  in  the  same  organism.  For  instance,  reactions  of 
the  salivary  glands  at  the  sight  of  food  certainly  have  for  their 
stimulus  the  visual  reaction ;  and,  in  turn,  they  become  the  stimu- 
lus of  various  gastric  glands.  This  does  not  indicate  that  stimu- 
lus and  reaction  are  'purely  relative'  terms,  in  the  sense  that  the 
distinction  between  them  is  not  genuine,  and  that  a  stimulus  is 
not  'really'  a  stimulus,  but  now  one  thing  and  now  another,  ac- 
cording to  the  way  one  happens  to  look  at  it.  Like  every  other 
real  entity,  stimulus  and  reaction  stand  individually  in  innu- 
merable relations  at  every  instant,  without  any  loss  of  their  dis- 
tinctness. So  they  appear,  and  so  must  they  be  described. 

About  the  reaction,  we  may  say  more.  Its  peculiar  character 
appears  best  in  its  outcome  for  the  organism;  and  this  outcome 
is  often  conspicuous  and  may  be  described  in  terms  of  the  stimulus. 
Thus,  the  lungs  select  oxygen  and  pass  it  on  to  the  blood ;  the  heart 
drives  on  the  blood;  the  eye  regulates  certain  motor  reflexes; 
and  so  on.  The  special  task,  in  each  case,  is  most  sharply  dis- 
tinguished, not  by  the  details  of  the  reaction  process  but  by  its  final 
relation  to  the  stimulus  which  has  set  up  the  reaction. 

In  looking  to  this  final  relation  between  reaction  and  stimulus, 
we  are  not  implying  that  this  relation  has  been  'aimed  at.'  The 
final  relation  is  not  necessarily  a  finalistic  one.  All  that  we  assume 
is  the  rather  obvious  fact  that  the  character  of  any  process  cannot  be 
clearly  read  off  until  the  whole  process  is  before  us.  Were  we  de- 
scribing a  dynamite  explosion,  we  should  have  to  look  to  the  final 
phase  of  it,  in  order  to  know  what  had  happened,  and  what  a  dyna- 
mite explosion  is.  Were  we  to  halt  in  our  description  at  the  very 
instant  when  the  unstable  molecules  of  the  stuff  were  disintegrated, 
we  should  not  be  describing  the  explosion.  Everything  deriving 
peculiarly  from  that  disintegration  must  be  inspected  and  specified ; 


TYPES  OF  REACTION  385 

e.g.  the  kind,  volume,  temperature,  pressure,  incandescence,  etc., 
of  the  gases  generated. 

B.  Some  Types  of  Reaction.  —  This  final  relation  can,  in  many 
cases,  be  very  precisely  indicated,  although  the  means  of  attaining 
it  are  absolutely  unknown.  It  has  many  distinct  types,  seven  of 
which  are  the  following : 

(a)  Adjustment ;  (i~)  partial  and  (ii)  total. 

(6)  Selection 

(c)  Conduction 

(d)  Transformation;  i.  Non-Constitutive        ii.  Constitutive 

a.  Selective 
/?.  Additive 

(e)  Resistance 

(f)  Reception 
(gf)  Retention 

These  last  two  will  not  be  discussed  at  present ;  they  involve 
psychological  issues,  all  of  which  are  to  be  avoided  until  the  prob- 
lem of  consciousness  is  broached,  in  the  closing  section  of  this  essay. 
The  other  five  types  of  reaction  may  be  briefly  described  as  follows : 

(a)  The  outcome  of  some  reactions  is  to  put  (i)  one  part  of  the 
organism  into  a  new  relation  with  some  part  of  the  stimulus ;  and 
of  others  to  put  (ii)  the  organism,  as  a  whole,  into  a  new  relation 
with  some  part  of  the  stimulus. 

(t)  The  lens  of  the  eye  reacts  so  as  to  throw  a  sharp  image  of  the 
stimulus  upon  the  retina.  Within  this  act  the  organism  as  a  whole 
does  not  alter  its  relation  to  the  environment.  And  only  one  fea- 
ture of  the  stimulus  is  reacted  to.  The  color,  intensity,  and  spe- 
cific character  are  inefficient  with  respect  to  the  ciliary  reflex. 

(ii)  The  leg  muscles  react  so  as  to  bring  the  entire  animal  to- 
ward or  away  from  (i)  the  origin  of  the  stimulus  or  (ii)  the  im- 
mediate influence  of  the  stimulus. 

(6)  The  lungs  select  oxygen  from  the  inhaled  air  and  reject  vari- 
ous other  gases.  The  ear  picks  out  air  vibrations  and  is  indifferent 
to  ether  vibrations. 

(c)  The  afferent  nerves  carry  certain  characters  of  peripheral 
2o 


386  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

conditions  to  the  central  nervous  system.  Whether  these  periph- 
eral conditions  are  identical  with  characters  of  the  stimuli  will 
be  later  discussed. 

(d)  The  stomach  adds  solvents  to  the  material  taken  in,  and  the 
material  is  thereby  altered  no  less  qualitatively  than  hydrogen  is 
altered  when  it  is  combined  with  oxygen.  The  alteration  is  not 
'absolute/  for  the  constituents  of  the  new  mixture  can  all  be 
separated  and  identified.  It  does,  however,  involve  genuine  now 
qualities. 

This  fact  raises  at  once  a  question  of  terminology.  Shall  we 
designate  as  transformative  every  reaction  which  develops  a  qual- 
ity (character)  which  was  not  present  and  efficient  in  the  same 
sense  in  the  complex  stimulus?  A  question  of  terminology,  in- 
deed !  But,  like  many  others,  one  on  which  many  vital  distinc- 
tions of  philosophy  and  science  turn.  It  is  largely  the  unclarity 
of  words  here  that  has  brought  about  differences  of  opinion  about 
the  relation  we  are  studying. 

Now,  for  present  purposes,  it  is  enough  to  demarcate  three  con- 
ceivable types  of  relation  between  stimulus  and  reaction :  — 
Species  A :  Non-constitutive. 

Type  1 ;   The  reaction  simply  releases  one  part  or  element  or 

phase  of  the  stimulus. 
Type  2;   The  reaction  adds  some  part  or  element  or  phase  of 

something  else  to  the  stimulus. 
Species  B :  Constitutive. 

Reaction  and  stimulus  are  simply  two  phases  of  one  unitary 
process,  as  the  two  poles  of  a  magnet  are.    Just  as  the  posi- 
tive pole  does  not  take  something  from  nor  add  something  to 
the  negative  pole,  so  the  reaction  does  not  consist  in  selecting 
something  from  the  stimulus  or  adding  something  to  it.     Each 
gets  its  character  from  its  relation  to  the  other. 
These  three  types  represent  distinctions  which  have  been  drawn. 
So  long  as  they  are  going  to  be  employed  by  anybody,  their  dif- 
ferences should  be  recognized  and  appropriately  named. 
Now,  it  strikes  me  that  Type  Al  should  not  be  called  a  qualita- 


TYPES  OF    REACTION  387 

tive  transformation.  To  label  it  thus  is  to  blur  over  several  highly 
important  differences.  There  is  no  denying  that  when  an  element 
is  released  from  a  complex,  both  the  element  and  the  remaining 
complex  behave  as  they  did  not  behave  before.  There  is  a  change 
from  behavior  of  one  character,  if  you  will,  to  behavior  of  another 
character ;  but  this  is  not  at  all  identical  with  a  qualitative  change 
of  the  behaving  entity.  The  change  of  behavior  may  be  one  and 
the  same  with  a  change  of  the  entity's  position  in  a  complex. 

For  instance,  a  dog  is  frequently  docile  when  at  large  and 
vicious  only  when  tethered.  Would  anybody  say,  though,  that  in 
turning  the  dog  loose,  we  change  his  quality  ?  Hardly :  for  the 
releasing,  as  such,  does  not  constitute  the  difference  in  the  animal's 
quality  of  action.  The  animal  changes  its  conduct,  under  different 
circumstances;  but  the  act  of  changing  the  circumstances  is  not 
identical  with  the  dog's  changing  its  behavior.  Neither  is  the 
animal's  doing  different  things  under  different  circumstances  a 
sign  of  a  change  of  nature.  To  act  now  thus  and  now  so  under 
identical  conditions,  though,  would  indicate  such  a  change.  The 
new  circumstances  (after  the  untethering)  bring  the  dog  into  new 
relations ;  and  it  is  in  response  to  these  latter  that  it  now  behaves 
differently.  The  distinction  is  fine,  to  be  sure,  but  none  the  less 
genuine.  It  appears  more  clearly  in  biological  cases. 

If  a  reaction  selects  a  part  of  a  stimulus  complex,  this  means 
simply  that  it  picks  the  part  out,  just  as  one  might  take  the  dog 
out  of  the  barn.  But,  having  so  removed  it  from  its  setting,  it 
has  perforce  let  it  into  some  other  settings.  The  lungs  not  only 
pick  out  oxygen,  but,  having  done  so,  turn  it  loose  in  the  blood. 
And  now  the  oxygen,  released  from  previous  restraints,  as  it  were, 
does  things  which  it  previously  could  not  do.  But  did  the  selec- 
tive reaction  endow  it  with  these  newly  developed  efficiencies? 
Not  at  all,  and  we  can  prove  empirically  that  it  did  not,  simply  by 
separating  the  oxygen  in  the  laboratory  and  discovering  all  those 
very  qualities.  It  is,  therefore,  the  positional  relation  of  the  part 
to  various  complexes  that  determines  the  results,  quite  independ- 
ently of  the  way  in  which  that  positional  relation  has  been  brought 


388  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

about.    Of  a  truly  selective  reaction,  then,  we  must  say  that  it 
does  not  bestow  qualities  upon  entities  (stimuli)  or  take  them  away. 

Type  A2  may  reasonably  be  called  a  'qualitative  transforma- 
tion' in  one  restricted  and  somewhat  questionable  sense.  The  dog 
which  is  savage  when  tied  is  not  changed  qualitatively  by  the  mere 
act  of  being  released,  but  only  by  the  new  situation  into  which  it 
enters  when  free.  If,  however,  the  dog  is  overfed,  while  tethered, 
it  may  grow  less  ugly.  Now,  that  which  is  added  changes  the 
quality  of  the  dog's  conduct,  quite  independently  of  any  change 
in  the  dog's  relation  to  the  barn  or  the  tether  or  the  persons  barked 
at.  The  important  point  to  note  here  is  that  the  addition  is  made, 
not  to  the  total  complex  (dog-on-rope-in-barn),  but  to  the  canine 
part  of  it  alone;  and,  secondly,  that  adding  does  more  than  bring 
the  part  (dog)  into  a  new  relation  with  other  parts  of  that  or  other 
complexes;  it  involves  an  internal  change  of  the  particular  part 
involved.  The  position  of  the  dog,  as  a  whole,  to  its  rope,  the  barn, 
and  the  passers-by  is  not  at  all  changed  by  overfeeding;  hence 
so  long  as  we  regard  the  dog  simply  as  a  part  of  such  a  complex,  it  is  a 
logical  simple  in  that  particular  complex ;  and  the  change  wrought 
is  therefore  qualitative  with  respect  to  that  particular  complex.  The 
change  does  not  consist  in  a  change  of  its  positional  or  other  rela- 
tions to  the  complex.  So,  too,  the  stomach  genuinely  qualifies 
the  food  it  receives,  inasmuch  as  it  lends  it  chemicals  and  efficien- 
cies which  were  not  there  previously,  either  in  any  element  as  such 
or  in  the  complex  as  such,  in  any  sense. 

Obviously,  though,  such  a  transformation  is  'qualitative'  only 
because  we  treat  as  a  simple  a  factor  which  we  have  not  analyzed. 
In  the  complex,  dog-on-rope-in-barn,  the  dog  is  an  element.  Now 
an  element  is  not  identical  with  a  simple,  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
speak  of  the  dog  here  as  an  element.  But,  for  many  purposes,  we 
do  not  need  to  analyze  the  dog,  in  so  far  as  we  are  dealing  merely 
with  this  particular  complex.  When  this  is  the  case,  we  reckon 
the  dog  as  simple,  within  the  limits  of  our  inquiry,  and  hence  we 
must  say  that  every  change  in  the  animal  is  a  change  in  a  simple, 
and  hence  an  'internal,'  'qualitative'  change.  So  long  as  we  un- 


TYPES  OF  REACTION  889 

derstand  clearly  the  restricted  universe  of  discourse  within  which 
this  proposition  holds,  there  is  no  harm  in  asserting  it. 

Type  B  is  indisputably  a  qualitative  transformation,  and  more. 
The  reaction  and  the  stimulus  are  not  only  modified ;  they  are  in 
some  degree  constituted  by  it.  Their  nature  is  just  this  being  a 
pole  of  a  polar  complex.  Thus  it  is  radically  unlike  the  suppressed 
qualities  of  Al  or  the  added  qualities  and  the  pseudo-simple  changes 
of  A2. 

I  shall  hereafter  speak  of  transformations  as  of  Type  Al,  A2, 
and  B.  Type  Al  is  identical  with  the  simple  selective  reaction, 
listed  as  No.  2  in  the  enumeration  of  certain  fundamental  reaction 
types.  For  the  sake  of  a  historical  understanding  of  so-called 
'transformations,'  I  shall  tolerate  this  cross-division. 

(e)  The  last  type  of  reaction  here  to  be  described  is  resistance. 
The  organism,  affected  by  some  injurious  stimulus,  internal  or 
external,  does  not  avoid  it,  as  in  ordinary  adjustment ;  it  builds 
up  structures  which  intervene  between  the  stimulus  and  the  organic 
parts  which  the  stimulus  injures.  Frequently  this  process  appears 
to  be  incidental  to  the  regeneration  process  of  an  injured  structure. 
(In  this  manner  Ehrlich  explains  antitoxins.)  In  other  cases  this 
is  not  evident ;  as  in  the  fox's  growing  of  thicker  fur  in  winter,  in 
the  pigmentation  of  skin  under  extremely  bright  sunlight,  etc. 
And  it  is  quite  obscure  in  the  case  of  attention  to  cognized  entities, 
where  some  kind  of  resistance  is  offered  to  all  other  elements  tend- 
ing toward  the  cognitive  field. 

Let  us  now  consider  each  of  these  five  reaction  types  in  more 
detail. 

a.  Simple  Adjustment.  —  Stahl  has  demonstrated *  that  the  direc- 
tion of  incident  light  determines  the  position  of  the  first  cell  wall 
in  the  developing  spore  of  Equisetum.  And  Pfeffer's  experiments 
show  that  the  same  factor,  direction  of  light,  is  what  fixes  the  plane 
of  symmetry  in  the  growth  of  Marchantia.2  The  roots  of  plants 

1  Berichte  d.  Bot.  Ges.,  1885,  334. 

2  Sachs's  Arbeiten,  i.  92. 


390  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

regularly  turn  in  the  direction  of  the  gravitational  pull,  and  the 
stems  away  from  it.  Some  species  are  so  sensitive  that  a  very 
slight  change  of  position  sets  up  a  reaction  which  readjusts  the 
growths  to  their  previous  directions.  Driesch's  experiments  with 
Sertularia  also  show  this  very  prettily. 

Now,  let  us  try  to  explain  absolutely  nothing,  but  only  describe 
what  has  happened.  We  note  the  following  three  points : 

(i)  It  is  not  the  color,  nor  the  intensity,  nor  the  duration  of  the 
stimulus  which  causes  the  adjustment  of  organic  parts  into  definite 
positions.  It  is  only  the  direction  of  the  stimulus.  If,  then,  we 
are  to  speak  of  the  color  or  the  intensity  of  light  as  a  cause  of  other 
types  of  reactions,  we  must  now  speak  of  direction  as  being  no  less  a 
true  cause  in  the  present  case.  It  is,  in  short,  not  a  metaphysical 
hypothesis  to  say  that  direction  is  a  cause ;  it  is  pure  formal  analy- 
sis. Direction  is  the  necessary  antecedent  concomitant  variant. 
Descriptively,  it  is  an  efficiency,  no  less  than  the  mass  or  the  elec- 
tric charge  is. 

This  fact  is  not  altered  by  the  other  alleged  fact,  that,  hi  adjust- 
ments to  the  direction  of  gravity,  this  effect  is  brought  about  by 
the  sinking  of  the  heavier  cells  within  the  organism  and  the  rising 
of  the  lighter  kinds,  which  latter  are  central  in  the  roots  and  pe- 
ripheral in  the  stems.1  Suppose  this  does  occur ;  is  it  not  the  very 
same  happening  which  we  have  just  been  describing,  in  another 
manner  ?  It  is  the  direction  of  the  gravity  pull  which  causes  the 
direction  of  the  motion  of  the  cells.  And  the  proof  is  as  before  : 
vary  the  direction  of  the  stimulus,  and  you  vary  correspondingly 
the  directions  of  the  moving  cells. 

The  implication  of  this  reaches  far  beyond  biology.  It  touches 
physics  and  mechanics.  Here,  too,  the  efficiency  of  a  force  cannot 

1 1  cite  this  hypothesis  only  because  it  presents  the  strongest  case  against  the 
view  above  set  forth.  But  it  is  strong  only  in  form  ;  to-day  it  cannot  cover  the  facts 
of  geotropism.  Pfeffer  and  Czapek  have  proved  that  only  those  cells  within  1  mm. 
of  the  tip  of  a  root  are  sensitive  to  geotropic  influences.  The  position  of  this  tip 
determines  that  of  the  whole  root,  and  its  removal  suspends  the  geotropism  until 
its  regeneration  is  completed.  In  the  light  of  this  fact,  we  cannot  admit  that  the 
mere  pressure  of  cell  against  cell  accomplishes  the  reaction. 


SIMPLE  ADJUSTMENT  391 

be  limited  to  the  pure  quantity  of  energy  involved ;  for,  if  it  were, 
then  no  regular  relation  would  appear  between  the  direction  of  a 
resultant  force  and  the  directions  of  its  components.  Vector  analy- 
sis, however,  reveals  a  simple  and  inflexible  relation  there.  It  is 
the  direction,  and  not  the  velocity,  mass,  acceleration,  or  retarda- 
tion exclusively  which  determines  the  path  of  a  body  acted  upon 
by  two  or  more  forces  in  a  pure  mechanical  system;  and,  in  a 
physical  system,  this  same  direction  value  causes  the  trans- 
formation of  kinetic  into  potential.  That  is,  'energy  is  consumed' 
in  changing  the  direction  of  a  body ;  or,  otherwise  stated,  a  force 
in  one  direction  is  efficiently  equal  to  (reduces  to)  a  smaller  force 
after  re-direction.  And  here,  even  as  in  the  case  of  the  developing 
spores,  concomitant  variation  proves  that  it  is  the  direction  which 
is  at  least  partly  the  cause  of  this.  And  by  'cause'  we  mean 
precisely  this  sort  of  necessary  prior  concomitant  of  a  given 
event. 

(ii)  The  reaction  is  generically  like  the  stimulus.  That  is,  the 
latter  is  a  direction  (or,  more  accurately,  a  force  whose  directive 
character  is  the  determining  one  in  the  particular  instance),  and 
so  too  is  the  former.  This  is  a  most  important  feature  of  the  situ- 
ation, for  it  sets  a  very  narrow  limit  to  our  interpretation  of  the 
relation  between  stimulus  and  reaction,  in  this  case.  We  can  say 
only  that  the  specific  stimulus  causes  a  re-direction  of  motions  in 
the  reagent ;  it  does  not  give  rise  to  any  new  qualities,  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  term  '  quality.'  There  is  a  genuine  change,  of  course, 
but  it  is  from  one  direction  to  another ;  not  from  one  quality  to 
another. 

We  are  now  ready  to  state  at  least  one  restriction  which  must  be 
put  upon  all  three  varieties  of  biological  anti-realism.  They  can- 
not maintain  that  every  reaction  involves  a  qualitative  transfor- 
mation of  its  stimulus,  unless  they  define  'quality'  so  as  to  make  it 
absolutely  everything  that  makes  any  kind  of  a  difference.  Such 
a  definition  reduces  'quality'  and  'difference'  to  almost  inter- 
changeable terms.  It  does  violence  to  good  usage  and  offers  no 
new  philosophical  convenience,  by  way  of  recompense.  How  its 


392  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

champions  defend  it  is  hard  to  see.  But  if  they  do  employ  it, 
they  must  still  admit  that  the  reaction  does  not  necessarily  involve 
a  generic  change  of  quality,  but  only  a  change  from  one  individual 
quality  to  another  of  the  same  genus. 

(Hi)  The  differences  of  reaction  are  related  to  one  another  in  the 
same  way  as  are  the  differences  of  stimulus.  For  instance,  if  a 
specimen  of  Sertularia  be  tipped  ten  degrees  eastward  from  per- 
pendicular, the  difference  between  gravitational  stimulus  A  (the 
one  before  the  tipping)  and  stimulus  B  (the  new  one)  is  just  that 
ten-degree  angle.  And  this  same  angle  constitutes  the  difference 
between  the  reaction  to  stimulus  A  and  the  reaction  to  stimulus 
B.  Obvious  as  this  is,  its  import  has,  so  far  as  I  know,  never  been 
sensed  by  those  biological  philosophers  who  are  urging  that  the 
'quality'  of  the  reaction  is  other  than  that  of  the  stimulus,  or 
that  the  reaction  qualitatively  transforms  the  stimulus.  There 
is  not  simply  a  one-to-one  correspondence  between  stimuli  and 
adjustment  reactions  (two  qualitatively  heterogeneous  systems); 
there  is  also  a  qualitative  identity  between  the  differences  urithin 
each  system.  The  difference  between  stimulus  A  and  stimulus  B 
is  not  simply  paralleled  by  a  difference  between  reaction  A  and 
reaction  B ;  but  the  former  difference  is  identical  with  the  latter, 
in  kind  and  in  measure.  The  implications  of  this  fact  appear, 
as  soon  as  one  seeks  to  interpret  the  two  systems  as  heterogeneous, 
as  we  shall  soon  allow  the  anti-realist  to  do.1 

Let  us  consider  a  case  of  adjustment  in  human  life.  One  of  the 
least  obscure  is  the  ciliary  reflex.  What  happens  here  ?  The  lens 
of  the  eye  is  thickened  or  flattened,  so  that  an  image  with  sharp 
outlines  is  thrown  upon  the  retina.  Now,  however  this  adjust- 
ment is  effected,  it  is  determined,  not  by  the  color  nor  the  bright- 
ness nor  by  the  shape  nor  by  the  size  nor  by  the  mere  grouping  of 
elements  in  the  visual  field,  but  by  the  distance  of  the  element  at- 
tended to  from  the  lens  (or  by  some  function  of  that  distance). 
This  is  none  the  less  true,  even  though  the  adjustment  is  accom- 
plished by  trial  and  error  methods ;  i.e.  by  running  rapidly  through 

i  Cf.,  428  ff. 


SIMPLE  SELECTION  393 

the  whole  range  of  adjustments  until  that  one  is  hit  upon  which 
gives  a  sharp  retinal  image.  Suppose  this  is  what  happens.  Then 
the  adjustment  is  determined  by  the  distance  between  the  edges 
of  overlapping  images  on  the  retina;  and  these  distances,  at 
each  individual  adjustment  of  the  lens,  are  functions  of  the  dis- 
tance of  the  external  object,  as  can  be  proved  by  simple  experi- 
ments in  optics.  The  extent  of  the  ciliary  contraction  or  expan- 
sion, therefore,  is  a  function  of  a  function  of  the  object's  distance ; 
in  other  words,  a  second  derivative.  As  in  the  previous  cases,  so 
here;  distance  is  a  genuine  efficiency,  and  the  reaction  to  it  is 
generally  like  it,  namely  an  adjustment  of  distances  (as  well  as  an 
adjustment  to  distances).  And,  finally,  the  differences  between 
the  stimuli  are  of  the  same  kind  as  the  differences  between  the 
reactions;  both  are  distance-complexes. 

&.  Simple  Selection.  —  This  exhibits  two  phases :  first,  the  dis- 
integration of  an  objective  complex  (the  stimulus),  so  that  the 
element  to  be  selected  is  released  from  the  complex ;  and,  secondly, 
the  rejection  of  those  other  elements  of  the  complex  which  are  not 
chosen.  The  former  activity  sometimes  involves  the  addition  of 
something  to  the  stimulant  complex,  as  a  means  to  the  disintegra- 
tion of  the  latter ;  and  this  addition  may  be,  in  one  case,  to  the 
element  that  is  to  be  selected,  and,  in  another  case,  to  the  total 
complex.  In  all  instances,  however,  the  outcome  is  the  same  gen- 
erically ;  one  element  is  selected  and  the  others  discarded. 

Simple  selection  is  so  familiar  that  a  detailed  description  of 
cases  would  be  needless.  It  will  suffice  to  name  a  few  striking 
instances.  The  eye  selects  light  waves  from  the  total  medium  act- 
ing upon  it ;  the  ear  selects  from  that  same  medium  only  air  waves. 
The  lungs  select  oxygen,  the  digestive  tract  carbohydrates,  and 
so  on.  Now  this  relation  is  accurately  stated  only  by  just  this 
same  term,  'selection.'  The  reaction  is  the  picking  out  of  a  part 
of  that  which  sets  up  the  reaction.  It  would  be  foolish  to  ask 
whether  the  reaction  resembles  the  stimulus  here ;  the  reaction  is 
the  process  of  selecting.  And  such  a  process  no  more  resembles 


394  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

that  from  which  something  is  selected  than  the  motions  of  a  wo- 
man's arm  in  sorting  strawberries  resemble  the  fruit.  What  she 
picks  out,  though,  not  only  resembles  part  of  the  mass  she  has 
been  picking  over ;  it  actually  is  a  part  of  that  mass,  transferred 
to  a  new  situation  and  relieved  of  sundry  undesirable  elements,  to 
wit,  the  stems  and  the  soft  spots. 

No  matter  how  closely  one  were  to  inspect  the  selecting  process, 
then,  one  would  never  discover  in  it  anything  like  that  which  it  is 
selecting.  But  were  one  to  look  at  the  material  with  which  the 
process  operates,  one  would  certainly  discover,  at  every  step  in 
the  operation,  some  element  of  it  in  some  arrangement.  These 
elements,  however,  might  be  so  disposed  that,  at  certain  instants 
in  the  process,  their  identification  would  be  impossible.  This 
difficulty,  though,  is  not  even  the  flimsiest  evidence  against  the 
real  presence  of  the  material  in  the  process.  The  real  test  of  its 
presence  is  indescribably  simple ;  it  is  this :  if  you  can  put  it  into 
the  process  and  later  take  it  out,  you  know  it  has  been  there,  in  one 
mode  or  another,  during  the  process. 

In  the  grosser  reactions  this  test  is  easily  made.  A  man  is  put 
in  a  room  and  oxygen  released;  in  due  season  his  blood  will  be 
carrying  more  oxygen.  The  oxygen  is  taken  away  and  his  air 
supply  cut  off ;  soon  the  quantity  of  oxygen  in  his  blood  drops  to 
the  danger  point.  So  too  with  the  chemicals  he  selects  from  food ; 
they  reappear,  after  digestion,  in  the  blood,  and  their  entire  prog- 
ress may  be  accurately  traced  from  the  table  to  the  living  tissue. 
Can  the  same  be  proved  in  any  of  the  finer,  more  elusive  processes 
of  the  reacting  organism?  Does  it  occur,  for  example,  in  the 
sensing  of  colors,  sounds,  odors,  etc.  ?  Or  are  all  these  reactions 
of  a  wholly  different  order?  This  question  will  be  faced  later. 
Just  now,  I  wish  only  to  point  out  that  there  is  a  profound  differ- 
ence between  selection  and  adjustment,  a  difference  great  enough 
to  throw  grave  doubt  upon  any  hypothesis  which  deals  with  re- 
actions in  general.  In  adjustment,  the  reaction  is  most  often  generi- 
cally  one  with  the  stimulus;  in  selection,  it  bears  not  the  remotest 
resemblance  to  it.  In  the  picking  up  of  oxygen,  there  is  nothing 


SIMPLE  SELECTION  395 

resembling  oxygen ;  but  in  the  ciliary  reflex  and  like  cases,  the  reac- 
tion consists  hi  a  complex  of  positions  and  directions,  and  so  too 
does  the  stimulus.  In  adjustment,  again,  no  element  of  the  stimu- 
lant complex  is  identically  taken  up ;  and  in  selection,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  operations  are  not  the  operations  of  oxygen,  in  whole  or 
in  part.  In  adjustment,  there  is  no  transforming  of  the  stimulus, 
but  only  the  taking  of  an  attitude  or  posture  toward  it. 

Plainly,  adjustment  of  the  sort  we  have  been  describing  is  not 
what  biological  philosophers  refer  to  when  they  call  life  itself  an 
adjustment  to  an  environment.  In  their  sense  of  the  term,  ad- 
justment is  exceedingly  vague  and  embraces  all  manners  of  ma- 
nipulations, changes,  and  remodeling  of  external  entities.  Is  it 
not  extremely  probable  that,  through  this  loose  usage,  the  notion 
has  been  strengthened  that  adjustments  are  intrinsically  trans- 
formative processes  ? 

It  must  be  evident,  by  this  time,  that  we  have  here  to  do,  not  only 
with  two  heterogeneous  types  of  reaction,  but  also  with  two  very 
different  orders  of  stimuli.  In  selection,  the  stimulus  is  that 
which  enters  the  organism;  in  adjustment,  it  is  commonly  an 
order  outside  of  the  organism  which,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
verb,  does  not  enter  the  organism  at  all,  but  merely  acts  char- 
acteristically upon  it.  This  difference  is  not  wiped  out  by  the 
fact  that  often  the  organism  selects  stimuli  for  adjustment,  selects 
from  among  its  own  various  possible  adjustments,  and  adjusts 
for  a  certain  selection.  Such  compound  processes  do  not  rob  their 
constituent  phases  of  their  proper  characteristics,  any  more  than 
water  abolishes  oxygen  and  hydrogen. 

There  is  a  further  peculiarity  of  the  relation  between  stimulus 
and  reaction,  hi  the  case  of  adjustments.  The  adjusting  reaction 
is  not  directed  to  that  effect  of  the  stimulus  which  enters  the  or- 
ganism, but  rather  to  the  stimulus  'itself  (in  common  par- 
lance, to  the  'external  object'  or  quality).  Thus,  although  the 
ciliary  reflex  may  be  regulated  by  the  distances  between  the  edges 
of  overlapping  images  on  the  retina,  the  direction  and  distance  of 
the  motions  of  the  muscle  fibers  in  the  ciliary  muscle  regulate  the 


396  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

directions  and  distances  of  the  causes  of  those  overlapping  images. 
Please  catch  this  distinction.  It  is  of  tremendous  importance, 
and  is  not  theory,  but  simple  description.  These  causes  are,  at 
the  instant  of  adjustment,  not  yet  a  genuine  stimulus;  they  will 
be,  in  the  very  next  moment.  And  the  lens  is  altered,  so  as  to  alter 
the  causes  of  the  images,  viz.  the  as  yet  unsensed  ether  waves 
beyond  the  lens.  The  alteration  aimed  at  does  not  take  place 
outside  of  the  organism ;  but  it  does  occur  prior  to  the  stimulation 
by  that  which  is  so  altered.  That  is,  the  light  waves  are  changed  in 
the  lens,  not  directly  on  the  retina  where  they  later  produce  images. 
This  operation  is  analagous  to  that  of  a  stomach  which  might  re- 
model food  before  the  latter  reached  it,  developing  a  special  organ 
for  this  task.  It  may  be,  of  course,  that  teeth  and  salivary  glands 
are  the  results  of  such  an  adjustment ;  certainly  their  relation  to 
the  digestive  process  is  much  like  that  of  the  ciliary  reflex  to  the 
visual  process.  But  such  speculation  carries  us  beyond  formal 
analysis.  All  that  we  can  say,  in  pure  description,  is  that  adjust- 
ment reactions,  unlike  the  purely  selective,  are  directed  backward 
from  the  immediate  stimuli  to  the  causes  of  these.  Or,  to  state 
it  in  general  form,  adjustment  reactions  (and  a  fortiori  the  struc- 
tural development  of  their  mechanism)  deal  with  the  cause-effect 
relation.1 

c.  Conduction.  —  This  relation  between  stimulus  and  reaction 
was  doubtful  until  recently,  and  for  the  very  good  reason  that  it 
has  not  been  directly  observable,  as  adjustments  and  selections 
and  transformations  have  been.  With  the  improvement  of  re- 
cording instruments,  though,  it  has  rapidly  been  clearing  up ;  and 
to-day,  as  Holt  has  pointed  out,2  we  are  in  a  position  to  assert  that, 
in  some  cases  at  least,  the  reaction  consists  in  the  transmission 

1  To  accept  this  description,  we  do  not  have  to  know  what  the  cause-effect  relation 
is.  It  is  adequately  marked  off  by  the  statement  that  the  effect  is  a  function  of 
any  prior  variable  in  a  real  system.  This  does  not  limit  causes  and  effects  to 
purely  mechanical  relations.  Any  pan*  of  characters,  A,  B,  constitutes  a  cause- 
effect  pair  if  A  is  at  (in)  t,  and  B  is  at  (in)  if,  and  B  =  (/) A. 

»  Holt,  321  ff. 


CONDUCTION  397 

of  the  periodicity  of  the  stimulus.  Lord  Rayleigh's  experiments, 
cited  by  Holt,  prove  that  sounds  of  lower  pitch  than  128  d.v.  a 
sec.  —  and  possibly  some  of  higher  —  cannot  be  localized  by  means 
of  differences  between  their  heard  intensities,  but  can  on  the  basis 
of  their  relative  phases,  as  they  enter  the  ears.  This  means,  of 
course,  that  this  difference  of  phase  is  sensed.1  Sherrington  has 
shown  that  nerve  impulses  follow  the  rhythm  of  stimulation,  up 
to  at  least  five  hundred  shocks  per  second;  and  there  are  good 
reasons  for  believing  that,  with  better  means  of  registering,  this 
symmetry  would  be  found  to  hold  at  higher  rates. 

I  believe,  however,  that  we  need  not  wait  on  such  technical  im- 
provements in  order  to  describe  the  possibilities  of  conduction. 
In  the  adaptation  of  the  flatfish  to  its  background,  we  have  the  most 
striking  of  a  host  of  instances  which  show  directly  the  relation  of 
approximate  identity  between  the  stimulus  and  the  conductive 
reaction.  The  behavior  of  the  flatfish  is  so  remarkable  that  I  shall 
describe  it  at  length.  As  it  beautifully  illustrates  selection  and 
spatial  transformation,  I  shall  mar  the  logical  order  of  my  topics 
by  here  describing  these  other  processes  also,  which  are  phases  of 
one  triplex  reaction  in  this  curious  animal. 

There  has  recently  appeared  a  monograph  on  this  subject 2  by 
Francis  B.  Sumner,  of  the  United  States  Fisheries  Laboratory  at 
Woods  Hole,  Massachusetts.  It  interests  me  peculiarly  because 
it  confirms,  by  experimentation,  my  previously  published  hypothe- 
sis about  the  retinal  image  and  the  imitative  reflex.3  My  own  in- 
ferences were  reached  by  an  analysis  of  some  obscure  psychological 

1  Taken  in  isolation,  this  fact  does  not  indicate  homogeneous  propagation  of  the 
stimulus,  by  any  method  of  formal  analysis ;  for  the  sensing  of  phase  differences 
might,  so  far  as  the  direct  observation  goes,  occur  in  the  peripheral  organs.  Ray- 
leigh's  statement  is  therefore  an  inference,  not  pure  description.  It  'is,  however, 
a  very  sound  inference.  For  there  are  numerous  other  experiments,  especially 
with  motor  nerves,  in  which  just  such  symmetrical  conduction  has  been  observed, 
and  not  inferred.  I  allude  to  these  above  and  again  refer  the  reader  to  Holt. 

*  The  Adjustment  of  Flatfishes  to  Various  Backgrounds,  Journal  of  Experimental 
Zoology,  10,  No.  4. 

*/.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  1,  92,  204.  The  second  of  these  papers  was  read 
in  part,  before  the  American  Philosophical  Association,  December,  1909. 


398  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

events.  In  order  to  follow  the  analysis,  the  reader  had  to  observe 
those  events  with  severe  accuracy;  but  this  seems  to  have  been 
not  at  all  easy.  In  Simmer's  data,  though,  no  such  difficulty  arises. 

The  flatfish  changes  its  hue  to  conform  to  the  color  of  the  back- 
grounds on  which  the  creature  happens  to  lie.  For  a  tune  biolo- 
gists supposed  that  this  adaptation  was  effected  by  some  direct 
photochemism  upon  the  skin.  But,  a  quarter  century  ago,  Pou- 
chet  proved  that  it  was  brought  about  through  the  functioning  of 
the  eye.  He  found  that  blinded  fish  do  not  change  their  color  adap- 
tively.  Interesting  and  significant  as  this  discovery  is,  however, 
it  does  not  tell  us  anything  about  the  most  astounding  behavior 
of  the  flatfish,  namely,  its  adaptation  of  its  own  geometrical  skin- 
patterns  to  copy  the  geometrical  pattern  of  the  sea-bottom  upon 
which  it  rests.  By  one  of  those  freaks  of  circumstance  which  are 
only  too  common  in  all  scientific  fields,  nobody  paid  serious  atten- 
tion to  this  phenomenon  until  Sumner  approached  it  last  year,  first 
at  the  Naples  aquarium  and  later  at  Woods  Hole.  "In  observing 
a  turbot,"  says  Sumner,  "I  was  impressed  by  the  detailed  resem- 
blance which  obtained  between  the  markings  of  the  skin  and  the 
appearance  of  the  gravel  on  which  the  fish  rested.  .  .  .  The  query 
at  once  suggested  itself :  Is  it  a  mere  coincidence,  or  does  the  fish 
have  the  power  of  controlling  the  color  pattern  as  well  as  the  gen- 
eral color  tone  of  the  body?" 

To  answer  this,  Sumner  prepared  a  number  of  backgrounds, 
some  reproducing  various  types  of  natural  sea-bottom  (fine  sand, 
coarse  sand,  fine  gravel,  coarse  gravel,  of  various  colors),  and  some 
being  highly  unnatural  geometrical  patterns  (checkerboard,  polka 
dot,  stripes,  screen,  etc.).  Placed  in  a  tank  having  one  of  these 
patterns  on  its  bottom,  the  flatfish  began  to  copy  the  pattern  on 
its  back.  ('Copying'  does  not  imply  'consciousness'  or  'effort,' 
so  far  as  the  mere  use  of  the  word  here  is  concerned.)  The  time 
required  to  complete  the  imitation  varied. 

This  time  ranged  from  a  few  seconds  to  several  days.  A  change 
involving  the  almost  complete  withdrawal  from  view  of  the  skin 
pigments  in  a  dark  specimen  probably  required  the  longest  period. 


THE  FLATFISH  399 

In  general,  .  .  .  the  maximum  effect  was  commonly  attained  within 
one  or  two  days  at  the  most.  The  fact  .  .  .  that  practice  or 
habituation  to  these  changes  greatly  reduces  the  time  required  was 
clearly  shown.  .  .  .  Certain  specimens,  after  several  changes  of 
background,  were  found  to  adapt  themselves,  in  almost  full  meas- 
ure, to  one  of  these  within  a  fraction  of  a  minute. 

Some  of  the  adaptations  were  so  perfect  that  the  flatfish  was 
all  but  indistinguishable  from  the  background ;  and  the  spots  on 
the  skin  became  smaller  when  the  diameter  of  spots  on  the  back- 
ground was  reduced  by  less  than  a  centimeter.  Naturally,  the 
imitation  was  by  no  means  equally  successful  against  all  back- 
grounds. "Fixed  morphological  conditions"  prevented  the  re- 
production of  perfect  squares,  triangles,  circles,  etc.  It  was,  how- 
ever, so  exceedingly  plastic  and  sensitive  that  "the  notion  that 
the  fish  is  limited  to  a  few  stereotyped  responses,  representing 
the  most  familiar  types  of  habitat,  must  be  rejected  at  once." 

The  discoveries  of  greatest  interest  are  two :  first,  the  imitation 
is  accomplished  through  the  flatfish's  eyes;  and,  secondly,  only  a 
part  of  the  fish's  visual  field  is  involved  in  the  process  —  the  creature 
does  not  imitate  everything  it  sees.  The  first  discovery  might  have 
been  made  by  pure  analysis.  For,  were  the  eye  not  the  instrument 
of  imitation,  then  we  should  have  to  assume  that  the  light  reflected 
up  from  the  background  acted  directly  on  the  skin.  Against  this, 
however,  there  are  two  objections :  first,  the  flatfish's  belly,  which 
directly  receives  the  reflected  light  while  the  fish  is  swimming  above 
the  sea-bottom,  is  not  sensitive  —  only  the  back,  turned  away  from  the 
reflected  light,  takes  on  the  patterns;  and,  secondly,  as  Summer 
points  out,  "it  is  impossible  to  see  how  responses  to  a  pattern 
could  be  brought  about  through  any  organs  except  the  eyes,  for 
these  alone  are  provided  with  the  lenses  necessary  for  the  produc- 
tion of  images."  The  reader  who  suspects  the  analytical  method, 
however,  may  ignore  these  proofs.1  For  Sumner  has  demon- 

1  The  possibility  that  tactile  stimuli  may  produce  the  effect  cannot  be  absolutely 
eliminated  by  pure  analysis.  Sumner  has  put  it  out  of  court,  though,  by  the 
simple  experiment  of  putting  fish  on  glass  bottoms,  the  under  side  of  which  waa 
painted  with  patterns.  The  imitative  reaction  was  exactly  as  quick  and  as  sure  as 
ever. 


400  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

strated  the  matter  by  cauterizing  the  flatfish's  eyes  with  silver 
nitrate,  blindfolding  them,  or  blinding  them  completely.  So 
treated,  the  animal  ceased  altogether  to  imitate  the  background 
pattern,  and  its  hue  reverted  to  an  even,  dark  shade  "representing 
more  nearly  the  resting  state  of  the  chromatophores." 

The  second  discovery  grew  out  of  a  series  of  experiments  in 
which  the  walls  of  the  tank  were  variously  colored  and  patterned. 

In  the  case  of  the  Rhomboidichthys,  .  .  .  that  part  of  the  bottom 
immediately  surrounding  the  fish  appeared  to  be  the  one  chiefly 
effective.  .  .  .  The  influence  of  the  vertical  walls  of  the  vessel 
commonly  seemed  to  be  a  subordinate  one,  even  in  cases  where  the 
fish  was  so  large  that  it  covered  a  considerable  fraction  of  the  bottom 
and  was  obliged  to  lie  constantly  with  its  eyes  close  to  one  side  or 
another  of  the  jar.  .  .  .  What  the  fish  saw  directly  overhead  .  .  . 
seemed  to  exert  a  negligible  influence  upon  the  color  pattern. 

So  much  for  the  chief  facts.  Be  it  noted,  first  of  all,  that  the 
imitative  reaction  is  not  always  seen  by  the  flatfish,  and  that 
Sumner  has  shown  that  the  animal  can  adapt  while  its  entire  body 
(except  for  the  eyes)  is  buried  hi  sand  or  completely  masked  with 
a  cloth  or  deeply  stained.  This  renders  it  "highly  improbable 
that  any  direct  visual  comparison  on  the  part  of  the  fish  between 
its  own  body  surface  and  the  surrounding  background  is  an  es- 
sential factor  hi  the  production  of  these  changes."  In  other 
words,  'consciousness'  (in  whatever  sense  the  term  be  used)  is  not 
an  instrument  in  making  one  space  pattern  match  another. 

If  it  is  not,  how  can  one  continue  to  hold  the  old  psychological 
doctrine  that  the  arrangement  of  space-elements  (or  non-spatial 
elements)  into  forms,  patterns,  or  perspective  orders  is  brought 
about  in  any  degree  by  the  cognitive  process,  or  by  the  'associa- 
tion of  ideas'  ?  As  with  the  imitative  reflex  among  human  beings, 
so  here.  The  process  is  set  up  by  a  physical  stimulus,  and  its 
result  either  cannot  or  need  not  be  perceived  by  the  organism. 
The  correspondence,  therefore,  is  not  between  the  flatfish's  percept 
A  and  the  same  flatfish's  percept  B;  it  is  between  a  stimulus  (which 
may  or  may  not  be  perceived,  for  aught  we  yet  know)  and  a  chemi- 
cal pattern  which  is  the  cause  of  a  perception  in  an  external  observer. 


TRANSLATION  OF  PERSPECTIVE  401 

In  other  words,  the  flatfish  is  not  imitating  merely  its  own  percept 
A,  but  is  doing  so  in  such  a  manner  that  some  other  creature  will 
perceive  the  flatfish's  skin  as  having,  not  merely  the  characteristics 
of  the  fish's  percept  A,  but  as  having  the  characteristics  of  the  external 
cause  of  perceiving  A.  To  make  this  last  point  clear,  consider  the 
second  phase  of  the  total  process;  namely,  the  spatial  transformation. 

The  flatfish's  eyes  are  very  close  to  the  sea-bottom,  sometimes 
only  a  centimeter  or  so  above  it  —  as  when  it  buries  its  body.  It 
is  while  in  this  position  that  the  eyes  sense  the  shape,  size,  color, 
and  arrangement  of  the  sand  and  pebbles.  These  objects  are 
therefore  cast  upon  the  retina  in  an  extremely  oblique  perspective. 
You  may  get  the  general  effect  by  holding  your  eye  close  to  your 
desk  and  glancing  across  the  latter.  The  foreshortening  will  be 
at  a  maximum ;  a  few  items  in  the  foreground  will  loom  up,  while 
the  converging  of  the  rest  of  the  field  will  be  rapid.  But  this  is 
not  the  scene  which  the  flatfish  reproduces  on  its  skin.  It  depicts, 
with  its  chromatophores,  the  color,  shape,  size,  and  pattern  of  the 
material  on  the  sea-bottom  as  this  material  would  appear  to  an  eye 
whose  line  of  direct  vision  was  perpendicular  to  the  plane  of  the  sea- 
bottom  and  a  great  enough  distance  from  the  sea-bottom  so  that  the 
units  of  the  pattern  could  be  seen  without  any  appreciable  perspective 
distortion.  Roughly  speaking,  the  skin  pattern  closely  resembles 
that  of  the  sea-bottom  as  the  latter  would  appear  to  you  if  you 
were  looking  directly  down  at  it,  and  six  inches  or  more  away  from  it. 

However  this  queer  deed  is  accomplished,  it  certainly  results  in 
a  translation  of  one  perspective  into  another  perspective;  and 
this  translation  is  precisely  that  which  is  deducible  from  Euclidean 
space.  The  rate  of  reduction  of  relative  sizes  in  the  first  perspec- 
tive is  a  function  (mathematical)  of  the  distance  between  eye  and 
plane ;  and  this  very  same  relation  governs  the  chemisms  in  the 
chromatophores  and  also  the  rearranging  of  the  latter.1  Inasmuch 

1  Sumner  has  found  that  the  plane  in  which  a  given  surface  lies  with  relation 

to  the  flatfish  sometimes  determines  whether  or  not  it  shall  be  effective  in  calling 

forth  a  given  change.     It  is  not  certain,  he  adds,  that  this  influence  is  decided  by 

"  purely  quantitative  relations  within  the  visual  field."     Should  later  experiments 

2D 


402  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

as  this  translation  is  accomplished  without  the  fish's  seeing  what 
it  is  doing  to  its  own  skin,  we  must  at  least  conclude  that  somehow 
the  perspective  relations  are  so  thoroughly  'in'  the  space  which 
the  fish  sees  around  it  that  they  can  cause  other  perspective  rela- 
tions just  as  truly  as  one  chemical  relation  causes  another.  And 
just  as  one  chemical  relation  causes  another,  without  the  assistance 
of  any  psychical  act,  so  too  with  perspective  relations :  they  are 
not  set  up  by  the  'association  of  ideas/  nor  by  an  'a  priori  syn- 
thesis.' They  are  physical,  no  less  than  weight  is,  and  absolutely 
non-mental  in  the  sense  that  they  are  not  constituted  by  any 
psychical  process.  The  full  interpretation  of  this  particular  mat- 
ter lies  beyond  formal  analysis.  But  it  is  not  improper  to  suggest 
that,  if  perspective  is  a  mere  physical  relation  in  a  lower  animal's 
adjustment,  it  is  probably  the  same  in  human  perceptions.  At  all 
events,  no  mere  introspective  difficulties  can  now  force  us  to  as- 
sume that  some  mysterious  psychical  'association  of  ideas'  or 
'local  signs'  manufacture,  out  of  non-physical  elements,  the  space 
relations  which  we  see.  Should  this  statement  be  taken  in  full 
earnest,  the  entire  British  and  Kantian  psychology,  together  with 
all  modern  disguised  variations,  would  have  to  be  discarded. 

And  now  for  the  third  phase  of  the  process,  namely  selection. 
The  flatfish  adapts  its  skin  pattern  only  to  the  sea-bottom,  in 
normal  life.  The  animal  notices  objects  above  the  bottom  and 
even  directly  overhead;  it  follows  such  with  its  eyes  and  moves 
toward  or  away  from  them.  But  the  very  same  pattern  which  sets 
up  the  pigment  reactions  when  it  is  underneath  the  fish  has  absolutely 
no  effect  when  above  it. 

A  plate  of  opaque  white  glass,  of  the  same  size  as  the  bottom 
of  the  tank,  was  covered  with  small,  irregular  blotches  of  black 

paint The  three  specimens  used  in  this  experiment  had 

all  been  unmistakably  influenced  by  this  spotted  plate  when  this 
was  placed  beneath  them,  assuming  a  much  blotched  appearance. 
Upon  the  removal  of  the  plate  from  beneath  them,  they  had  re- 

fully  confirm  the  non-quantitative  character  of  it,  we  should  have  to  admit 
what  I  have  above  advanced,  namely,  that  directions  are  precisely  as  objective 
and  efficient  as  material  things  are. 


SELECTIVE  ATTENTION  403 

turned  to  a  nearly  unspotted  condition.  The  spotted  plate  .  .  . 
was  next  inserted  above  the  fishes  (under  the  surface  of  the  water, 
of  course).  The  plate  .  .  .  was  brightly  lighted  by  the  mirror 
below.  That  the  fishes  could  see  this  spotted  surface  cannot  be 
doubted.  Nevertheless,  not  one  of  the  specimens  showed  any  appre- 
ciable influence,  even  after  several  days.  Return  of  the  spotted  plate 
to  the  bottom  of  the  tank,  beneath  the  fishes,  resulted  in  each  case  in 
a  resumption  of  the  blotched  condition  within  a  few  hours  at  most.1 

Descriptively,  then,  the  perceiving  function  is  not  constructive 
or  transformative,  but  merely  selective.  Certain  important  ele- 
ments in  the  environment  are  attended  to,  to  the  exclusion  of 
others,  when  and  only  when  it  is  a  question  of  adapting  the  skin 
pattern.  The  other  elements  are  seen,  but  they  are  ignored  for 
this  particular  reaction.  Unquestionably,  the  flatfish  has  a  gen- 
uine 'field  of  attention'  wholly  distinct  from  the  visual  field. 
But  the  items  entering  into  the  field  of  attention  are  not  trans- 
formed therewith ;  for  they  all  pass  over  unchanged  into  the  skin 
of  the  fish.  I  see  no  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  at  least  one 
of  the  primary  functions  of  psychic  reactions  is  to  select,  reject,  and 
direct  certain  environmental  characters  with  reference  to  certain 
other  functions  (such  as  nutrition,  protection,  locomotion,  etc.). 
It  seems  equally  sure  that  selection  and  reaction  to  the  selected 
character  does  not  necessarily  alter  the  latter.  In  other  words, 
adaptation  of  agent  to  environment  does  not  have  to  involve  a 
qualitative  change  in  more  than  one  of  the  two  relata.  And,  in 
the  special  case  of  selective  attention,  this  operation  does  not  mod- 
ify the  essential  characters  of  the  stimuli  selected  for  response.2 

1  Italics  mine. 

2  The  remarkable  facts  Sumner  has  brought  to  light  may  not  raise  the  difficulties 
which  their  discoverer  fears.     I  do  not  find  it  difficult,  as  he  does,  "  to  conceive  of  a 
nervous  mechanism  competent  to  bring  about  such  changes."     Is  it  not  quite 
probable  that  we  have  to  do  here  with  an  exceedingly  simple,  rather  than  a  mysteri- 
ously complex  structure  and  function  ?      Instead  of  being  an  elaborate  photochemi- 
cal process  which  begins  in  the  retina  and  undergoes  a  large  number  of  incompre- 
hensible transformations  on  the   tract  to  the  pigment  cells,  may  the  patterning 
not  be  effected  by  the  direct  conduction  of  untransformed  ether  waves  to  the 
chromatophores  ?     To-day  this  hypothesis  is  not  so  extravagant  as  it  was  before 
Sherrington  and  others  demonstrated  experimentally  that  the  periodicity  of  nervous 


404  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

We  have  still  to  consider  a  case  of  conduction  which  is  even 
more  illuminating  than  the  untransformed  conduction  of  stimuli 
through  the  flatfish.  In  the  latter  we  found  peripheral  conditions 
flowing  on  through  the  organism ;  and  we  were  justified  in  infer- 
ring that,  whatever  the  sensory  nervous  system  of  the  animal  ac- 
complished, it  did  not  alter  all  of  the  stimulus  characters.  We 
were  not  assured,  however,  that  the  peripheral  sense  organs  did 
not  add  some  psychic  quality  to  the  received  stimulus;  and  it 
remained  at  least  conceivable  that  this  additional  tone  qualified 
whatever  may  have  appeared  in  the  animal's  consciousness  and 
perhaps  have  been  the  necessary  ingredient  in  the  dynamic  complex 
which  later  regulated  the  imitative  adjustments.  In  other  words, 
while  the  sensory  nerves  conduct  some  qualities,  they  may,  so  far  as 
the  case  in  question  testifies,  add  to  the  latter  some  unique  speci- 
ficity ;  and  this  might  be  of  the  sort  which  anti-realistic  thinkers 
would  describe  as  'physical'  or  'mental'  or  'non-physical.' 

But  there  is  another  well-established  fact  which  demonstrates 
that,  even  though  sensory  nerves  (or  structures)  do  add  some- 
thing to  stimuli,  that  which  is  added  is  a  character  which  can  be 
propagated  through  inorganic  spaces,  precisely  as  light  or  elec- 
tricity can  be ;  and  hence,  that  it  is,  in  some  sense,  spatial  or  physical. 
I  allude  now  to  the  experiments  of  Nemec,  proving  that,  in  plants, 
stimuli  that  have  been  taken  up  by  leaf  and  stem  tips  can  pass 
through  dead  tissue  and  induce  in  the  organism  the  same  reaction 
as  though  the  stimuli  had  been  transmitted  through  living  tissue.1 
The  following  summary  of  Nemec's  research  is  abridged  from 
Macdougall's  account  of  it.2 

impulses  corresponds  to  the  periodicity  of  serially  repeated  stimuli,  at  least  up  to 
rates  of  500  per  second.  If  we  suppose  that  this  correspondence  holds  for  all  cases, 
even  those  of  ether  wave  shocks,  we  then  have  a  nerve  impulse  at  the  pigment 
cells  which  is,  in  pattern  and  in  photo-chemical  efficiency,  identical  with  the  stim- 
ulus pattern. 

1  Nemec,  B.,  Reizleitung  und  die  Reizleitenden  Strukturen  bei  den  Pflanzen, 
Jena,  1901. 

»  Macdougall,  D.  T.,  Practical  Text-Book  of  Plant  Physiology,  New  York,  1901, 
16,  17. 


TRANSFORMATION  405 

A  specimen  of  Mimosa  was  employed.  A  section  of  its  stem 
was  killed  by  pouring  boiling  water  on  it  for  three  periods  of  five 
minutes  each.  Harsh  stimuli  were  then  administered  to  leaves 
above  the  injured  section.  Some  leaves  were  cut,  and  others  were 
burned.  The  reactions  were  of  the  usual  sort,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  shock  had  to  be  transmitted  through  dead  cells  before 
the  reactions  could  occur. 

Now,  one  might  say  that  the  stimuli  were  conveyed  through  the 
dead  section  by  the  water  in  the  tube-like  cells  which  are  supposed 
to  conduct  impulses  consisting  of  hydrostatic  disturbances  of  the 
fluid  they  contain.  But  this  does  not  seem  to  be  the  case,  inas- 
much as  the  reaction  of  the  injured  Mimosa  takes  place  also  when 
the  stem  is  dessicated.  But  suppose  that,  even  in  this  latter  in- 
stance, there  is  a  microscopic  amount  of  fluid  present  in  the  in- 
jured region,  and  that  it  is  by  means  of  this  fluid  that  the  reaction 
is  regulated.  Would  this  not  still  force  us  to  infer  that  the  speci- 
ficity of  the  stimulus  and  of  the  reaction  is  not  intracellular,  but 
is  somehow  a  property  of  the  fluid;  and  a  property,  moreover, 
which  can  flow  along  through  dead  matter,  just  as  an  electric  cur- 
rent can  ? 

To  be  sure,  the  experiment  does  not  prove  that  the  specificity 
of  the  stimulus  is  not  conveyed  through  dead  tissue,  say,  by  some 
unknown  microorganisms  in  the  fluid,  and  that  these  micro- 
organisms infuse  into  the  received  stimulus  some  mysterious 
psychical,  non-physical  nature.  I  leave  the  reader  free,  however, 
to  attach  what  importance  he  will  to  this  conceivable  state  of 
affairs.  For  myself,  it  does  not  seem  worth  a  moment's  consid- 
eration, in  the  light  of  the  other  facts  we  know  about  afferent 
processes. 

d.  Transformation.  —  Type  Al.  This  has  just  been  described 
in  the  case  of  the  flatfish. 

Type  A  2.  —  This  reaction  is  the  most  difficult  to  describe,  because 
it  is  either  going  on  simultaneously  with  a  selective  process  or  else 
operates  with  a  stimulus  of  which  we  know  so  little  that  we  cannot 


406  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

be  sure  that  there  is  a  genuine  transformation.  The  former  case 
we  find  in  the  digestive  series ;  the  latter  case  appears  in  the  so- 
called  'lower  senses,'  touch,  taste,  and  smell.  Especially  in  the 
tactile  sensation  do  we  seem  to  have  a  qualitative  change  of  the 
profoundest  character.  I  mean,  the  stimulus  is  simple  pressure, 
in  the  thoroughly  physical  sense  of  this  term;  but  the  specific 
quale  resulting  from  that  pressure  cannot  readily  be  thought  of  or 
perceptually  analyzed  into  precisely  what  the  physicistmeans  by  pres- 
sure. There  would  appear,  therefore,  to  be  here  some  inner  change 
of  the  stimulus  effected  by  the  reaction  to  it.  Pure  description  can 
carry  me  not  an  inch  beyond  this  view.  I  know  of  no  instances 
which  give  us  evidence  that  pressure  is  homogeneously  propa- 
gated through  the  nervous  system,  as  light  and  air  waves  appear 
to  be.1  Indeed,  I  do  not  understand  what  that  performance  would 
be.  So  I  shall  say  that,  so  far  as  description  can  now  carry  us,  the 
stimuli  of  odor,  taste,  smell,  and  other  'lower'  senses  are  transformed 
by  the  reactions  to  them.  This  does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  it  is 
the  sensing,  as  such,  that  changes  them ;  it  only  means  that,  in  con- 

1  Difficult  as  a  matter  of  pure  description,  I  mean.  I  have  a  hypothesis  about 
this  very  difficulty,  and  the  hypothesis  involves  an  explanation  of  the  striking 
differences  between  the  tactile,  olfactory,  and  gustatory  characters  and  those  of  the 
'higher  senses.'  Briefly,  it  assumes  that  the  'lower'  sense  operations  are ' internal ' 
to  each  stimulus  unit,  whereas  those  operations  of  the  '  higher '  senses  are  'external ' 
to  their  stimulus  units.  By '  internal,'  I  here  mean  that  the  '  raw '  stimulus  actually 
invades  the  sensing  organ ;  by '  external,'  I  mean  that  it  does  not.  When  it  does  in- 
vade it,  the  total  organ  is  taken  up  with  its  reacting  to  the  single  stimulus  and  so, 
sensing  nothing  else,  does  not  sense  the  difference  of  the  momentary  stimulus  from 
others.  Lacking  every  such  differentia,  the  stimulus  is  specific  but  not  explicitly 
qualified.  To  speak  the  language  of  logic,  the  quale  is  a  term  stripped  of  all  its  re- 
lations. Hence  our  inability  to  classify  and  order  the  '  lower '  qualia;  hence 
their  inability  to  compose  themselves  into  forms  analogous  to  a  musical  chord 
or  a  space-color  pattern. 

All  this  and  its  extensive  presuppositions,  however,  are  not  formal  analysis.  I 
hint  at  them  only  to  prevent  a  critic  from  supposing  that,  when  I  admit  the  failure  of 
pure  description  to  state  the  relation  between  stimulus  and  reaction  in  the  '  lower ' 
senses,  I  am  confessing  that  a  realistic  view  breaks  down.  This  latter  does  not 
depend  upon  the  universal  possibility  of  formal  analysis.  To  say  that  it  did  would 
be  to  presuppose  that  no  genuine  simples  are  given  in  experience,  and  also  that 
every  given  complex  must  be  equally  clear  as  to  its  terms  as  it  ia  in  its  relations. 


TRANSFORMATION  407 

nection  with  the  sensory  reaction,  some  process  does.  The  process 
that  does  may  bear  the  same  general  relation  to  the  sensory  process 
that  the  masticating  of  food  bears  to  the  digestive  selection  of 
food  elements.  Indeed,  to  lapse  for  an  instant  from  pure  descrip- 
tion, there  are  many  good  reasons  for  supposing  that  it  is  just 
this  relation  which  does  obtain;  and  there  are  some  grounds  for 
conjecturing  that  most,  if  not  all,  cases  of  transformation  precede 
selective  processes  and  serve  only  to  facilitate  selection.  Surely, 
all  the  clear  instances  of  transformation,  to  which  we  shall  now 
turn,  are  so  to  be  described. 

The  two  great,  unambiguous  types  of  transformation  are  res- 
piration and  digestion.  Here  the  stimuli  are  actually  seized 
upon  and  made  over  in  toto.  In  toto,  be  it  repeated,  but  not  in 
partibus.  That  is,  the  received  complex  is,  as  a  complex,  increased 
by  the  addition  of  new  elements  (as  saliva,  bile,  etc.)  which  alter 
the  structure  of  the  complex.  The  new  complex  is  so  formed  that 
certain  of  its  elements  can  now  be  withdrawn  from  it  more  read- 
ily; and  they  are  so  withdrawn.  (Once  more  let  me  warn  the 
reader  that  this  language  does  not  imply  or  presuppose  finalistic 
processes.)  After  the  elements  have  been  withdrawn  and  appro- 
priated by  the  organism,  the  remainder  of  the  complex  (including 
some  original  and  some  acquired  constituents,  in  mixed  measure) 
is  cast  out  of  the  organism.  The  rejected  part  is  cut  off  from  stimu- 
lating and  regulating  the  organism,  in  its  further  reactions  to  the 
selected  part  of  the  complex. 

This  general  description  is  enough  to  make  clear  the  broader 
character  of  the  digestive  and  respiratory  transformations.  Were 
we  conducting  a  biological  canvass,  we  should  now  have  to  ask  in 
which  other  operations  the  same  type  of  transformation  occurs. 
That  is  not  our  present  duty ;  but  I  should  like  to  point  out  one 
peculiar  instance.  In  so  far  as  pure  description  guides  me,  I  find 
pleasure  and  pain  to  be  precisely  such  additive  transformations, 

Formal  analysis  is  only  one  of  many  methods  of  discerning  reals.  Formal  analysis 
may  be  just  as  incompetent  to  deal  with  some  problems  as  deduction  is  useless  in 
one's  endeavor  to  decide  which  of  two  paintings  is  the  more  beautiful. 


408  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

serving  to  facilitate  a  later  selection  of  some  element.  This  de- 
scription does  not  tell  the  whole  truth  about  the  situation,  but,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  it  seems  to  fit. 

I  am  directly  aware  of  two  circumstances  in  many  algedonic 
reactions  :  first,  that  the  '  external '  stimulus  is  colored  or  suffused 
with  the  feeling  tone,  which  is  felt  as  not  belonging  to  it  in  the 
same  thorough  manner  in  which  its  specific  quality  does;  and, 
secondly,  that,  in  the  succeeding  reactions  to  this  complex,  the  feeling 
tone  is  sloughed  off  and  the  organism  operates  solely  with  the  '  external' 
character.  For  instance,  I  hear  a  sound  which  is  very  pleasant; 
and  the  pleasantness  of  it  'makes'  me  attend  to  it  exclusively.  I 
select  the  sound  from  a  large  complex  of  auditory  stimuli;  but 
after  I  have  selected  it,  I  react  to  the  objective  character  of  it 
altogether  (or,  at  least,  predominantly).  My  motor  adjustments 
are  to  its  rhythms,  not  to  the  pleasure ;  my  'associations '  (reveries) 
are  about  its  specific  character,  its  relation  to  other  melodies,  other 
places  where  I  have  heard  melodies,  its  meaning,  etc.  In  other 
words,  the  pleasure  initially  transforms  the  music ;  but  the  conse- 
quence of  its  doing  so  is  that  it  facilitates  the  selection  of  the  music,  and 
after  the  selection  the  pleasure  tone  is  not  reacted  to,  but  at  most 
only  accompanies  or  coexists  with  the  selected  music.  So  far  as 
pure  description  can  speak,  then,  the  pleasure  tone  is,  to  the  mental 
reactions,  exactly  what  saliva  is  to  the  digestive  reactions;  a 
transformer  by  addition,  serving  to  facilitate  a  later  selection  of 
something  else. 

Pleasure  and  pain,  then,  are  intraorganic  additives.  Like  saliva, 
they  are  not  an  original  part  of  the  incoming  stimulus  nor  yet 
mere  products  of  the  assimilating  process,  but  rather  a  prelimi- 
nary aid  to  a  selection  and  a  later  adjustment.  They  mingle  with 
the  received  matter,  and  genuinely  qualify  it  in  such  a  manner  that 
the  organic  reaction  to  the  matter  is  heightened.  Thus,  they  most 
remarkably  resemble  the  opsonins  of  the  blood,  whose  specific 
function  it  is  to  'flavor'  bacteria  so  that  the  leucocytes  will  ab- 
sorb the  latter.  This  resemblance,  I  admit,  may  be  quite  acci- 
dental and  without  much  significance;  but  it  is  worth  some  in- 


RESISTANCE  409 

quiry,  for  it  would  be  a  discovery  of  no  small  moment,  were  we  to 
find  that  blood  reactions  and  algedonic  reactions  are  generically 
related. 

Type  B.  —  I  have  not  been  able  to  put  my  finger  upon  a  case 
of  such  transformation.  Always  the  instances  which  at  first  seem 
to  fulfill  the  conditions  of  this  type  prove,  upon  inspection,  to  be 
only  complex  and  obscure  instances  of  either  Type  Al  or  A2. 

e.  Resistances.  —  These  are  structural  or  functional  or  both.  For 
our  purposes,  they  need  not  be  so  distinguished,  though.  It  is 
here  important  only  to  indicate  the  type  of  relation  between  the 
stimulus  and  the  resistance  reaction.  Now,  there  are  at  least  two 
and  almost  certainly  three  or  more  radically  different  sub-types 
of  this  relation :  (i)  resistance  by  destruction  of  the  stimulus  (or 
an  element  of  it) ;  (M)  resistance  by  interpolation  of  insensitive 
material  between  reagent  and  stimulus;  and  (Hi)  resistance  by 
suspense  of  collateral  functions.  Strict  accuracy  might  lead  one 
to  add  a  fourth  sub-type,  namely  resistance  by  simple  rejection 
of  the  stimulus ;  as  in  the  case  of  resisting  attack  by  a  wild  beast. 
But,  for  obvious  reasons,  we  need  not  concern  ourselves  here  with 
this  instance. 

(i)  Resistance  by  Destruction  of  Stimulus. — Specimens  of  this 
are  very  numerous.  I  mention  only  the  blood  resistances,  be- 
cause they  bring  out  the  important  features  of  the  type. 

a.  Antitoxins  of  the  Blood.  —  The  specific  antitoxic  reaction  of 
the  blood  does  not  act  upon  the  bacteria  which  have  produced  the 
toxin.  It  is  simply  a  process  of  neutralizing  the  toxin.  The 
diphtheria  bacillus,  the  tetanus  bacillus,  and  other  varieties  gene- 
rate poisons  injurious  to  the  organism  they  inhabit.  These  poisons 
set  up  in  the  organism  a  counter-process  whereby  a  chemical  is 
generated  which  combines  with  the  toxin  so  as  to  neutralize  it. 
This  antitoxin  is  absolutely  harmless  to  the  bacteria  themselves, 
which  thrive  in  it  jauntily.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  bac- 
teria are  not  the  stimuli  of  this  antitoxic  reaction.  The  latter  is 
set  up  and  directed  toward  one  particular  effect  of  the  bacteria.  In 


410  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

short,  the  organism  here  reacts  to  only  one  feature  of  the  'total 
situation.' 

ft.  Bacteriolysins  and  Bactericides.  —  These  are  two  other  varie- 
ties of  organic  chemicals  generated  by  the  organism  infected.  They 
possess  the  contrary  power  of  the  antitoxins.  The  latter  neutral- 
ize the  toxins  produced  by  the  bacteria,  but  do  not  injure  the 
bacteria.  The  bacteriolysins  and  bactericides,  on  the  other  hand, 
do  not  neutralize  the  toxins  at  all,  but  they  do  kill  and  consume 
the  bacteria.  Here  again,  then,  we  have  a  reaction  directed  to- 
ward a  particular  feature  of  a  'total  situation'  and  affecting  only 
that  feature. 

Of  such  chemical  reactions  the  number  is  legion ;  and  not  only 
is  each  one  directed  toward  some  element  in  a  stimulating  complex, 
but  also  it  is  efficient  only  with  respect  to  that  very  element.  The 
tetanus  antitoxin  neutralizes  only  the  toxin  of  tetanus  bacteria, 
not  that  of  diphtheria  or  any  other  infection.  The  typhoid  bac- 
teriolysin  avails  naught  against  the  malaria  bacteria.  And  so  on. 

Another  observation  which  will  bear  upon  the  philosophical 
issue  we  shall  raise.  At  least  five  types  of  blood  reactions  are  pro- 
duced simultaneously  in  case  of  infection :  the  three  above  named 
and  also  agglutinators  and  opsonins.  But,  though  produced  as 
if  by  one  reaction,  they  do  not  form  an  'organic  whole'  in  the 
Hegelian  sense  of  this  misleading  phrase.  That  is,  they  are  not  of 
such  a  character  that  their  nature  is  constituted  by  their  inter- 
relations. We  have  of  this  a  perfect  empirical  proof,  in  the  fact 
that  they  can  be  separated  by  the  physiological  chemist  without 
losing  their  specific  efficiencies.  The  antitoxic  serum  can  be  with- 
drawn from  the  blood  of  a  horse,  and,  apart  from  the  other  chemi- 
cals of  the  blood,  still  neutralize  its  own  proper  toxin. 

The  question  whether  such  resistance  chemicals  depend  upon 
a  natural  reagent  at  all  —  that  is,  whether  they  are  caused  exclu- 
sively by  an  organic  process  —  has  not  yet  been  conclusively  an- 
swered. The  trend  of  evidence,  however,  is  strongly  toward  a 
negative  answer.  Organic  secretions  have  nothing  unique  or  mys- 
terious in  their  make-up.  They  can  doubtless  be  manufactured 


RESISTANCE  BY  INTERPOLATION  411 

in  any  laboratory,  as  soon  as  their  chemistry  is  better  understood. 
When  the  first  one  is  so  produced,  biologists  will  see  more  clearly 
that  the  peculiar  'unity'  of  life  is  not  to  be  looked  for  in  organic 
chemistry,  but  rather  in  the  dynamic  relation  between  stimulus 
and  the  response  to  its  specificity. 

(ii)  Resistance  by  Interpolation.  —  Here  are  to  be  included  all 
operations  like  callousing,  thickening  of  fur,  pigmentation  under 
sunlight,  etc.  Suppose  my  hands,  now  soft  and  thin-skinned,  are 
put  to  handling  rough  boards.  At  first,  the  skin  is  scratched  and 
worn  through  and  blistered.  But  soon  it  thickens  so  much  that 
repetitions  of  the  previous  stimulation  no  longer  reach  the  sensory 
nerves  and  the  subcutaneous  tissues  with  the  same  violence.  Now 
the  immediate  stimulus  is  a  series  of  impacts,  and  these  are  halted. 
But  this  halting  does  not  constitute  the  reaction  of  which  we  are 
speaking.  The  callousing  is  a  wholly  different  operation.  It 
succeeds  the  absorption  of  the  immediate  impact  by  a  consider- 
able period ;  and  —  what  is  infinitely  more  significant  —  it 
is  not  directed  to  the  stimulus  which  induced  it  (for  that  stimulus 
has  long  since  passed),  but  is  directed  to  the  path  of  the  stimulus, 
and  so  indirectly  to  future  stimuli.  And  the  effect  of  the  reaction 
is  not  to  prevent  its  own  initiating  stimulus  from  doing  damage  to 
the  organism,  but  to  prevent  later  stimuli  from  so  doing.  I  claim, 
therefore,  that,  as  a  matter  of  pure  description,  we  ought  not  call 
the  callousing  a  reaction  to  the  stimulus  initiating  it,  unless  we 
peculiarly  limit  the  meaning  of  the  preposition  'to.'  If  Ho' 
indicates  the  direction  of  the  reaction,  the  preposition  is  certainly 
out  of  place  in  the  above  context. 

We  may  now  state  more  precisely  the  manner  in  which  the  relata 
are  and  are  not  reciprocally  altered  in  this  type  of  reaction.  The 
immediate  stimulus  is  absorbed,  not  by  the  reaction,  but  by  the 
organic  stuff  that  intercepts  it.  The  reaction  grows  out  of  this 
stuff,  somehow,  and  operates,  not  so  as  to  change  the  environ- 
ment (e.g.  the  boards  that  are  being  handled,  or  the  handling  of 
them),  but  only  so  as  to  cut  off  the  impacts  from  the  sensitive  or- 
ganism. This  does  not  change  the  impacts,  in  the  sense  that  they 


412  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

are  any  different,  as  objective,  external  events.  A  board,  for  in- 
stance, is  equally  rough  before  and  after  the  callousing  reaction 
has  set  up.  It  weighs  just  as  much,  whether  the  lumberman's 
palms  are  soft  or  hard.  The  inertia  and  momentum,  as  it  slides 
off  the  lumber  wagon,  are  not  altered  by  the  reaction. 

How,  then,  has  anything  been  accomplished  by  the  reaction? 
The  answer  carries  us  back  to  the  difficulty  we  alluded  to  at  the 
beginning  of  this  essay;  namely,  the  demarcation  of  organism  from 
environment.  If  we  define  the  organism  as  that  which  initiates 
reactions  to  stimuli,  then  large  tracts  of  the  body  are  not  organic, 
in  this  narrower  sense.  The  callouses  are  not,  for  instance.  They 
are  products  of  a  reaction,  not  the  initiators.  Should  we  employ 
that  definition,  we  ought  to  describe  them  as  elements  inserted 
into  the  environment  by  the  organism,  as  insulators.  As  objects, 
they  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  biological  'situation'  that  the 
glass  insulators  of  a  telephone  line  bear  to  the  telephoning. 
With  respect  to  the  latter  process,  the  insulators  are  a  true  part 
of  the  environment;  they  are  not  a  phase  of  the  telephoning -pro- 
cess, but  only  a  means  of  preventing  the  earth  from  disturbing 
that  process.  They  neither  modify  the  elements  in  the  telephonic 
series  nor  the  earth,  but  rather  forestall  such  modifications. 

(in)  Resistance  by  Suspense  of  Collateral  Functions.  —  This  process 
appears  in  that  all-important  but  little  understood  operation  of 
mental  attention,  which  Ebbinghaus  aptly  describes  as  'eine 
rechte  Verlegenheit  der  Psychologic.'  If  the  reader  will  bear  in 
mind  that  I  am  not  here  engaged  in  presenting  a  theory  about 
attention,  but  am  only  describing  what  is  open  to  formal  analysis, 
he  need  not  be  offended  by  the  remark  that  attention  not  only  in- 
volves a  certain  facilitation  whereby  the  observer  smooths  the  way 
for  stimuli  of  the  chosen  type,  but  it  also  involves  cutting  out  all 
other  stimuli  —  or  at  least  offering  them  a  heightened  resistance. 

As  to  the  precise  nature  of  this  double  performance,  psycholo- 
gists know  little  or  nothing.  They  conjecture  that  the  facilitation 
may  be  accomplished  by  a  drainage  of  nervous  energy  into  the 
appropriate  sensory  centers  from  the  muscles  which  are  accommo- 


SUSPENSE  OF  COLLATERAL  FUNCTIONS        413 

dated  specifically  to  the  stimuli  that  are  to  be  attended  to.  But 
this  strikes  me  as  unillum  mating ;  for  the  accommodation  itself  is 
certainly  a  part  of  the  attending  act,  indeed  may  be  the  facilita- 
tion and  not  the  cause  of  it.  And,  in  any  case,  there  is  little  or  no 
physiological  evidence  of  such  a  drainage,  and  there  is  even  con- 
siderable doubt  as  to  the  existence  of  sensory  centers,  especially 
of  the  sort  which  are  so  highly  differentiated  that  one  receives  only 
the  pitch  of  tone  and  another  only  the  timbre,  one  the  form  of  a 
visible  object  and  another  the  color.  Because  of  such  uncertain- 
ties, we  must  shun  every  exact  theory  about  attention  and  con- 
tent ourselves  with  pointing  out  certain  respects  in  which  its 
specific  resistances  —  whatever  they  may  be  —  contrast  with  the 
types  above  described. 

Now,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  inhibited  stimuli  are  not  destroyed, 
as  bacteria  are  by  the  bactericidal  reaction.  For  we  commonly 
become  aware  of  events  which  we  did  not  cognize  while  they  were 
happening  because  we  were  engrossed  with  some  other  affairs. 
At  the  close  of  an  exciting  chapter  in  a  novel,  we  suddenly  sense 
for  the  first  time  that  the  clock  struck  midnight  some  minutes  ago. 
Of  course,  this  could  not  occur  if  the  original  stimulus  had  been 
annihilated  somewhere  along  the  afferent  tract. 

Again,  there  cannot  be  any  interpolation  of  insensitive  struc- 
ture, as  in  callousing  or  protective  pigmentation.  Not  only  is  all 
evidence  of  such  a  process  lacking ;  the  latter  is  inconceivable.  No 
systems  of  screens  can  be  imagined  which  would  shut  out  or  inter- 
fere strongly  with  all  but  any  one  kind  of  that  incomputable  multi- 
tude of  stimuli  which  assail  the  sense  organs  continually.  How, 
for  example,  could  there  be  devised  a  material  filter  that  would  ad- 
mit to  the  cortex  only  the  meaning  of  words  and  not  their  printed 
form  (a  separation  which  is  readily  made,  in  attention)  or  conversely 
only  the  printed  form  and  not  their  contextual  significance  ? l  To 

1  This  phenomenon  is  less  familiar  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  not  been  studied. 
It  sometimes  appears  in  highly  expert  proofreaders,  who  have  trained  themselves 
so  well  to  note  only  typography  that  often  they  cannot  state  even  vaguely  the  con- 
tent of  what  they  have  just  read. 


414  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

put  the  question  is  to  answer  it.  The  filter  would  have  to  be  of 
infinite  complexity  and  instantaneous  plasticity,  to  manage  the 
swift  shifts  of  attention  in  everyday  life. 

Now,  if  the  stimulus  is  not  destroyed,  and  if  it  is  not  excluded 
from  the  attention  field  by  an  interpolated  structure,  then  there 
remains  only  one  member  of  the  biological  triad  to  perform  the 
trick;  and  that  is  the  reagent  itself.  It  must  suspend  certain 
operations.  It  must  simply  stop  sensing  certain  data  in  certain 
contexts.  How  this  is  done,  we  do  not  know;  nor  need  we,  so 
long  as  we  are  merely  analyzing  observable  events  in  terms  of 
their  observed  differences.  This  much  may  be  anticipated,  how- 
ever; the  functions  which  are  suspended  are  not  mere  spatio- 
temporal  movements,  for  they  do  not  effect  the  displacing  of  the 
inhibited  stimuli  in  time  or  in  space,  but  only  their  displacing 
from  the  cognitive  field.  Doubtless  they  involve  spatio-tem- 
poral operations;  but  these  do  not  constitute,  of  themselves,  the 
specific  resistance.  If  this  statement  is  obscure,  the  reader  may 
ignore  it  for  the  present. 

Ill 

RESULTS  OF  THIS  FORMAL  ANALYSIS 

At  least  four  highly  significant  facts  have  emerged  from  the 
above  descriptions. 

1.  Reaction  ('response')  is  not  a  single  type,  except  in  so 
far  as  every  case  of  reaction  involves  the  same  types  of  complexes 
as  its  terms,  namely,  'agent'  and  environment.     With  respect  to 
the  relations  between  these  terms,  there  are  many  heterogeneous 
reactions  which  cannot  be  reduced  to  any  one  pattern. 

2.  The  relations  between  the  terms  of  the  biological  'situa- 
tion' are  not  'internal,'  in  any  observed  case.    Transformations 
which  seem  to  produce  new,  unique  qualities  do  so  only  in  the 
sense  that  they  establish  new  complexes  which,  with  respect  to 
their  complexity  alone,  are  novel.     Primordial  characters  do  not 
seem  to  be  created  by  any  organic  change  which  we  can  observe. 


RESULTS  OF  THE  ANALYSIS  415 

3.  Reactions  are  not  to  'total  situations,'  but  to  phases  or  parts 
or  elements  of  such.     This  narrowing  of  activity  does  not  always 
entail  a  change  in  the  environment  nor  the  manufacture  of  synthetic 
products  in  the  organism. 

4.  Geometrical,   mathematical,    and  other  relations  are  gen- 
uine stimuli,  in  the  very  same  sense  that  material  complexes  are. 
Hence,  for  formal  analysis,  they  are  not  products  of  the  cognitive 
reaction,  but  the  producers  of  it  and  many  other  kinds. 

A  few  comments  on  each  of  these  points. 

1.  This  must  be  urged  upon  idealistic  biologists  and  also  upon 
some  biological  pragmatists.  These  investigators  have  tended 
to  construe  all  reactions  as  fundamentally  alike,  not  only  in  re- 
spect to  the  terms  involved,  but  also  in  respect  to  the  type  of  re- 
lation between  these.  This  relation  has  been  called  a  transform- 
ative one,  and  the  adjective  has  not  been  severely  analyzed. 

The  biological  pragmatist,  for  instance,  opposes  radical 
realism  on  the  ground  that  adaptation  involves  some  trans- 
formation of  the  environmental  character  which  stimulates  the  or- 
ganism and  to  which  the  organism  responds.  He  admits  that 
there  is  an  external  and  independent  environment,  and  just  so 
far  he  is  one  with  the  realist.  But  he  denies  that  there  is  anything 
like  correspondence  between  the  environment  as  known  and  the 
environment  as  unknown.  For,  says  he,  knowing  is  a  response  to 
a  situation;  and  wherever  such  processes  occur,  there  is  a 
modification  of  both  the  stimulus  and  the  recipient  organism. 
Therefore,  the  world,  as  known,  is  a  peculiar  system  of  'contents,' 
which  do  not  exist  as  qualities  of  the  external  order,  but  are  never- 
theless genuine  functions  of  the  two  variables,  stimulus  and  re- 
action processes.  In  this  manner  the  biological  pragmatist  es- 
capes epiphenomenalism  and  subjectivism,  and  he  seems  to  have 
struck  a  happy  compromise  between  the  radical  idealist  and  the 
radical  realist.  With  the  idealist,  he  maintains  that  there  is 
some  kind  of  synthesis  involved  in  experience,  and  that  this  syn- 
thesis eventuates  in  a  'content'  which  is  neither  pure  object  nor 


416  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

pure  subject.  With  the  realist,  on  the  other  hand,  he  believes 
that  the  object  system  (that  is,  what  the  biologist  calls  the  environ- 
ment) is  in  no  sense  constituted  by  its  being  known.  So  it  comes 
that  he  finds  himself  unscathed  by  the  realistic  attacks  upon  the 
idealistic  doctrine  that  esse  =  percipi.  Also  he  is  not  put  to  it 
to  clear  up  the  difficulties  in  the  theory  of  consciousness  and  the 
postulate  of  'external  relations/  as  the  realist  is.  All  in  all,  then, 
his  lot  to-day  seems  a  most  happy  one. 

If,  however,  we  inspect  his  hypothesis  of  stimulus  and  reaction, 
we  find  that  he  has  placed  several  restrictions  upon  the  facts  which 
the  descriptions  we  have  been  giving  will  not  allow.  This  appears 
most  clearly  in  Dewey's  account  of  the  matter.  Dewey  believes 
himself  to  be  a  realist  with  regard  to  percepts.1  But  he  finds  reason 
to  maintain  that  the  perceptive  reaction  is  transformative  and 
constitutive. 

The  seen  light  is  not  in  relation  to  an  organism.  We  may  speak, 
if  we  will  or  if  we  must,  of  the  relation  of  vibrations  of  the  ether 
to  the  eye-function ;  but  we  'cannot  speak,  without  making  non- 
sense of  the  relation  of  the  perceptual  light  to  an  eye,  or  an  eye- 
activity.  For  the  joint  efficiencies  of  the  eye-activity  and  of  the  vi- 
brations condition  the  seen  light.2 

As  I  understand  this  passage,  it  means  that  the  'joint  efficien- 
cies' bring  about  either  an  A2  or  a  B  type  of  transformation  of 
the  stimulus.3  If  the  eye-activity  simply  picked  out  and  con- 
ducted certain  kinds  of  light  to  a  center,  and  if  also  the  seeing  of 
the  light  consisted  merely  in  the  latter's  being  related  to  certain 
other  physical  entities  (perhaps  as  elements  are,  in  the  cross 
section  of  some  process),  then  there  would  be  no  nonsense  in 
speaking  of  the  relation  of  the  perceived  light  to  the  eye,  or  to  the 
eye-activity.  The  eye-activity  would  bear  somewhat  the  same 
relation  to  the  perceptual  light  which  a  camera  bears  to  the  light  it 
has  rearranged.  This  relation  might  be  statable  very  precisely ; 

1  Cf.  especially  his  Brief  Studies  in  Realism.     /.  of  Phil,  Psychol.,  etc.,  8,  393  ff. 
*  Ibid.,  396,  note.     Last  italics  mine. 
» Cf.  386  above. 


THE  PERCEPTIVE  REACTION  417 

and,  I  shall  venture  to  suggest  later,  that  the  general  type  of  it  is 
strikingly  like  a  familiar  geometrical  relation. 

To  deny  that  such  a  relation  obtains  is  justifiable  only  on  the 
assumption  that  the  eye  and  the  ether  in  combination  somehow 
constitute  the  seen  light,  after  the  manner  of  a  Type  B  transforma- 
tion. Were  this  the  case,  it  would  be  futile  to  search  for  a  rela- 
tion between  the  relation  of  eye  to  ether  and  the  eye.  Such  would 
be  a  Bradleyish  procedure,  precisely  like  that  of  hunting  for  the 
hidden  relation  between  A  and  r,  in  the  complex,  ArB.  Now,  to 
condemn  our  describing  the  seen  light  as  related  to  the  organism 
is  to  presuppose  that  the  seen  light  is  not  an  entity  in  relation,  but 
the  relating  of  two  entities.  It  is  this  view  which  Dewey  ex- 
plicitly holds,  not  on  general  metaphysical  grounds,  but  for  purely 
empirical  reasons. 

This,  I  believe,  cannot  be  maintained  against  the  evidence  of 
biology.  If  there  were  no  better  facts  to  array,  the  imitative 
adaptation  of  the  flatfish  would  prove  conclusively  that,  at  least 
in  some  cases,  the  eye  activity  does  not  condition  the  specific 
light-character  of  ether  vibrations,  but  only  the  distribution  and 
employment  of  these.  To  be  sure,  one  might  still  say  that  the 
organism  conditions  the  seen  light ;  but  exact  description  quickly 
reveals  the  danger  in  such  a  statement,  for  it  is  not  the  lumin- 
osity, as  such,  but  some  other  peculiarities  (especially  the  geomet- 
rical) which  are  conditioned. 

The  most  effective  facts  to  cite  here,  though,  are  those  which  we 
know  directly  and  which  have  been  long  studied ;  namely,  the  facts 
of  least  perceptible  differences.  In  these  we  have  proof  that  the 
joint  efficiencies  of  eye  activity  and  ether  vibrations  do  not  condi- 
tion the  seen  light.  Unlike  instances  drawn  from  the  behavior  of 
lower  animals,  the  psychological  data  to  be  considered  forestalls 
one  common  and  difficult  retort  of  the  internalist.  "If,"  he  often 
says,  "you  but  knew  A  in  all  its  inwardness,  you  would  discover 
that  every  change  in  r  involves  a  change  in  A  (and  B).  A  tree 
may  seem  to  be  unmodified  by  being  perceived ;  but  that  is  only 
because  we  know  not  all  that  is  happening  to  it."  However 


418  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

forcible  this  may  be  when  we  are  considering  physical  objects  at 
large,  it  fails  completely  when  we  are  debating  about  the  immediate 
nature  of  the  percept  alleged  to  be  conditioned  by  the  organic  and 
the  physical  terms  of  which  it  is  a  relation.  For  now  we  know  in 
its  entirety  the  subject  of  discussion;  we  are  talking  about  the 
percept,  qua  percept. 

I  gaze  at  a  pane  of  ground  glass  which  is  illuminated  from  be- 
hind. An  experimenter  slowly  increases  the  number  of  standard 
candles  which  he  allows  to  shine  upon  the  glass  from  a  certain  dis- 
tance. If  the  distance  is  great  enough,  he  may  light  up  twenty 
candles  before  I  perceive  an  increased  brightness  upon  the  ground 
glass.  In  terms  of  relations  and  relata,  what  has  happened?  A 
stimulus  has  been  modified  twenty  times,  and  each  time  a  new 
manner  (by  another  increment),  but  the  percept  has  not  changed 
at  all.  If,  then,  it  be  admitted  that  there  is  any  relation  whatso- 
ever between  the  stimulus  and  the  percept,  it  must  be  granted  also 
that  the  latter  at  least  is  not  constituted  by  that  relation. 

At  first  thought,  one  might  be  tempted  to  escape  this  conclusion 
by  arguing  that  the  changes  in  the  stimulus  have  been  'absorbed' 
or  'overcome'  somewhere  along  the  physiological  tract  that  is 
involved  in  the  perceiving  process.  But  this  avails  not  at  all,  so 
long  as  one  adheres  consistently  to  the  theory  of  internal  relations. 
For  let  these  physiological  factors  be  m,  n,  o,  p,  q,  r,  .  .  .  in  the 
first  instance,  before  the  stimulus  has  been  altered.  Then,  the  com- 
plex S-m-n-o-p-q-r-  .  .  .  C  constitutes  C  (the  perceived  brightness). 
That  is,  the  relation  of  C  to  r,  of  r  to  q,  of  q  to  p,  of  p  to  o,  etc.  back 
to  S  makes  C  what  C  is.  But  if  S  changes  its  relation  to  m  (as  it 
must  if  S  is  increased  by  twenty  candle  power),  then  m  is  altered ; 
for  m,  like  all  other  entities,  is  modified  intrinsically  by  its  relations 
to  other  entities.  And,  if  m  is  altered,  then  its  relation  to  n  is, 
and  consequently  n  too  is  inwardly  changed.  And  this  alteration 
continues  along  the  entire  chain ;  hence,  whatever  the  last  member 
of  the  complex  is  prior  to  C,  it  must  be  different,  hence  its  relation 
to  C  is;  and  hence  C  itself  is.  Resistance,  absorption,  adapta- 
tion cannot  occur,  inasmuch  as  they  involve  the  overcoming  of 


PERCEPTION  IS  NON-CONSTITUTIVE  419 

changes  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  keeping  of  some  entity  (char- 
acter, function,  etc.)  unchanged,  in  the  affected  system. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  point  out  the  series  of  transformations  in 
the  above-named  series  of  relations,  in  order  to  prove  that  the 
internal  theory  of  relations  is  false  here.  We  shall  score  no  less 
surely,  by  indicating  what  happens  when  the  twenty  added  candles 
are  extinguished  one  by  one.  After  the  nineteenth  has  been  put 
out,  the  original  stimulus  no  longer  exists  in  any  sense  compatible 
with  the  hypothesis  of  internal  relations.  There  was  a  light  of  n 
units  power;  there  is  one  of  n— 19  units.  Nineteen  relata  have 
dropped  out  of  existence ;  each  was  related  to  the  percept ;  hence 
the  latter  has  lost  nineteen  relations.  But  not  even  nineteen 
losses  alter  it  inwardly.1 

From  this  there  is  no  escape.  It  will  do  no  good  to  suggest  that 
maybe  there  are  minute,  unnoticed  changes  in  the  percept  during 
the  changing  of  the  stimulus.  Grant  that  there  are;  the  diffi- 
culty for  the  internalist  is  not  a  shade  less  formidable.  For  a 
minute  change  in  a  phase  or  element  of  a  complex  inevitably  modi- 
fies the  complex,  as  a  whole.  But  what  is  the  percept  as  a  whole, 
if  not  just  that  which  we  perceive,  namely,  a  certain  brightness? 
This  whole,  however,  is  not  changed  at  all.  And  if  we  do  not 
regard  the  percept,  qua  percept,  as  the  whole,  what  in  heaven's 
name  do  we  mean  by  the  seen  light,  the  heard  sound,  the  felt  smooth- 
ness, and  so  on?  In  this  particular  debate,  an  appeal  to  'subcon- 
scious '  qualia  would  simply  evade  the  issue. 

In  view  of  all  this,  I  conclude  that  the  discontinuous  variation 
of  percept  values  during  continuous  (or  more  nearly  continuous) 
variations  of  stimulus  proves  empirically  that  the  joint  efficiencies 
of  the  eye  activity  and  the  physical  matter  do  not  condition  the 
percept  constitutively ;  that  is,  the  seen  light  or  the  heard  sound 
is  not  a  new  total  complex  of  which  stimulus  and  reaction  are  ele- 
ments (Type  A2  transformation),  nor  is  it  the  dynamic  relation 
between  stimulus  and  reagant  and  so  constituted  by  the  terms  in 

1 1  treat  each  candle  as  a  unit  relatum,  simply  for  convenience.  It  would  be  no 
less  proper  to  speak  of  each  ether  wave  as  one. 


420  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

the  manner  that  the  relation  between  positive  and  negative  electric 
charges  is  constituted  by  these.  (Alleged  type  B  transforma- 
tion.) 

The  difficulties  which  American  biological  pragmatists  have 
found  with  the  concept  of  transformation  and  constitutive  pro- 
cesses can,  I  believe,  be  traced  directly  to  the  fact  that,  following 
Dewey's  lead,  they  have  attempted  to  apply  formal  analysis,  first 
of  all,  to  the  ethical  situation.  Like  Dewey,  their  first  interest  has 
been  in  human  conduct ;  and,  in  describing  its  processes,  they  have 
rendered  a  noteworthy  service  to  philosophy.  But  the  subject 
matter  offers  peculiar  obstacles.  First  of  all,  it  is  prodigiously 
complex ;  then,  it  is  largely  intangible ;  and,  finally,  it  is  thickly 
overlaid  with  traditions,  prejudices,  and  suspected  habits  of  speech 
and  action.  The  inevitable  result  is  that  for  a  long  time  the  ana- 
lyst must  deal  only  with  broad  complexes.  He  must  handle  many 
things  as  though  they  were  one  thing,  and  perhaps  one  thing  as 
though  it  were  many.  He  is  in  the  predicament  opposite  to  that 
of  the  mathematician,  who  quickly  attains  the  simpler  entities 
relation  of  his  subject  matter,  but  approaches  with  ever  decreas- 
ing velocity  the  analysis  of  the  highest  real  complexes. 

In  his  early  formal  analysis  of  the  moral  situation,1  Dewey  em- 
ploys the  concept  of  'transformation'  in  a  manner  which,  however 
necessary  at  the  time,  was  fraught  with  perils.  It  is  worth  criti- 
cizing here  because  it  has  undoubtedly  influenced  many  pragma- 
tists' interpretations  of  biological  facts,  even  though  they  may 
have  long  since  consciously  modified  it. 

Take  the  passage  in  which  Dewey  analyzes  the  'mediation  of 
impulses.'  This  process  he  describes  as  the  "back-reference  of  an 
experience  to  the  impulse  which  induces  it."  And  he  maintains 
that  "the  expression  of  every  impulse  stimulates  other  experiences, 
and  these  react  into  the  original  impulse  and  modify  it.  This  re- 
action ...  is  the  psychological  basis  of  moral  conduct."  "Such 
mediations  constitute  the  meaning  of  the  impulse  —  they  are  its 
significance,  its  import."  And,  four  pages  further  on:  "We  may 

1  The  Study  of  Ethics.     Ann  Arbor,  1897,  14,  etc. 


ARE    IMPULSES  TRANSFORMED?  421 

recognize  three  degrees  of  completeness  in  this  mediation.  In  the 
most  complete  reaction,  the  original  or  natural  impulse  is  com- 
pletely transformed;  it  no  longer  exists  in  its  first  condition.  Our 
impulse  to  locomotion,  for  example,  is  entirely  made  over  when 
the  reaction  of  other  experiences  into  it  is  completed  —  when  we 
learn  to  walk.  .  .  ." 

Now,  an  impulse  is  an  activity,  and  nothing  else.  Its  character 
is  not  at  all  derived  from  the  particular  elements  which  happen  to 
lie  in  the  path  of  the  activity,  restraining  or  facilitating  it.  In 
the  'complete  transformation'  of  the  locomotion  impulse  through 
mediation,  it  appears  to  me  that  the  impulse  itself  is  not  changed 
much  by  those  factors  which  come  to  regulate  the  leg  muscles. 
What  is  changed  is  only  the  path  of  discharge  and  the  rhythm  of 
tonus.  Now,  so  long  as  we  do  not  clearly  separate  the  activity 
itself  from  the  elements  it  immediately  affects  and  those  which 
affect  it,  we  shall  call  the  total  complex  'the  impulse.'  And, 
calling  it  that,  we  shall  have  to  say  that  it  is  changed  in  quality 
whenever  its  rhythm  or  direction  or  rate  of  discharge  is  altered. 
But  this  way  of  looking  at  it  is  demonstrably  improper,  inas- 
much as  many  elements  involved  in  the  discharge-zone  of  the 
impulse  do  not  contribute  to  create  the  impulse.  They  are  not 
constituents  of  the  activity,  but  only  of  the  field  of  action.  They 
bear  the  same  relation  to  the  impulse  that  the  iron  filings  in  a  mag- 
netic field  do  to  the  magnetic  force  there.  Their  pattern  is  not 
identical  with  the  pattern  of  the  pure  force,  and  they  may  be  with- 
drawn without  altering  the  latter  in  any  respect.  Had  we  time 
now  to  pursue  this  analysis,  we  should  find  that  'mediation'  al- 
ters only  a  few  factors;  and  that  these  are  chiefly  parts,  not 
the  activity,  but  of  the  field.  Enough  has  been  suggested,  though, 
to  show  the  dangers  in  the  way  of  A2  hypotheses  here. 

If  the  danger  is  serious,  when  we  are  analyzing  impulse,  it  be- 
comes gigantic  when  we  turn  to  perception.  It  is  not  very  hard 
to  hold  apart,  in  one's  thinking,  the  impulse  from  the  im- 
pulse field,  and  to  observe  that  the  latter  does  not  constitute 
the  former,  nor  vice  versa.  But  how  different  the  undertaking 


422  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

is  with  the  perceptual  reaction !  What  here  is  the  activity  and 
what  the  field  of  activity?  And  how  are  they  related?  What 
changes  the  one,  and  what  the  other?  These  questions  the  bio- 
logical pragmatist  has  not  answered  wrongly;  he  has  not  yet 
faced  them,  so  far  as  I  know. 

2.  If  former  analysis  is  to  be  trusted,  the  doctrine  of  '  internal ' 
relations  finds  absolutely  no  confirmation  hi  biology.  This  is  the 
irony  of  fate;  for  those  who  accept  the  doctrine  build  it  into  a 
metaphysic  which  they  call  '  organic. '  They  name  it  after  the 
analogy  of  life  because  they  are  persuaded  that  life  offers  the  most 
convincing  illustrations  of  entities  being  constituted  by  their  rela- 
tions, and  of  parts  depending  upon  the  wholes  in  which  they  stand. 

In  this  belief,  the  internalists  follow  a  vague  popular  opinion. 
Men  know  that  a  human  heart,  torn  from  its  natural  lodging, 
immediately  ceases  to  beat;  and  that  its  former  owner  loses  all 
interest  in  daily  affairs.  Also,  it  is  pretty  well  established  that 
you  cannot  spoil  a  man's  stomach  without  spoiling  his  temper  — 
and  so  on.  Like  most  easily  formed  opinions,  however,  this  one 
has  truth  enough  for  most  practical  purposes,  but  falls  short  of  the 
philosopher's  full  measure.  For  the  evidence  of  modern  inquiries 
is  all  in  the  opposite  direction.  Indeed,  experimental  zoology  and 
surgery  are  performing  feats  which  make  one  wonder  whether 
there  is  a  single  relation  that  is  '  organic  '  in  the  metaphysical 
sense  of  this  adjective.  Note  these  two  following  discoveries: 

A.  Organic  parts  do  not  depend  upon  the  whole  in  which  they 
naturally  occur,  except  in  an  empty  sense  of  the  verb.  —  R.  G.  Harri- 
son has  grafted  the  anterior  half  of  a  frog  of  one  species  (Vires- 
cens)  on  to  the  posterior  half  of  a  specimen  of  another  species 
(Palustris),  and  has  successfully  reared  young  frogs  from  the 
combination.  Each  half  preserved  the  peculiarities  of  its  species, 
and  there  was  no  trace  of  any  mutual  influence  between  the  halves.1 

A  still  more  enlightening  experiment  was  performed  by  E.  Joest, 
who  grafted  the  halves  of  two  different  species  of  earthworms 
together.  There  was  no  sign  of  reciprocal  influence;  so,  to  make 

1  Reported  by  Morgan,  T.  H.,     Experimental  Zoology,  New  York,  1907,  299  ff. 


ORGANIC  WHOLES  AND  PARTS  423 

certain  that  this  was  not  due  to  the  fact  that  both  specimens  were 
fully  formed  and  thereby  fixed  in  structure  and  function  prior  to 
grafting,  Joest  later  removed  a  part  of  one  of  the  components. 
Regeneration  then  set  in.  Now,  the  new  part  derived  nourishment 
from  blood  that  came  from  both  components;  nevertheless  it  grew 
true  to  its  native  part.  The  new  material  from  the  other  part  did 
not  alter  it  at  all. 

We  need  not  multiply  instances,  of  which  there  are  many. 
Analyze  any  one  of  them,  and  the  metaphysician's  dilemma 
appears  readily.  To  defend  the  internalistic  theory,  he  must  say 
that  each  half  of  the  grafted  frog  was  changed  in  some  unknown 
manner  —  and  then  the  heavy,  heavy  burden  of  proof  rests  upon 
him  —  or  else  he  must  say  that  one  half  of  a  frog  is  just  that  half 
of  just  that  frog,  only  so  long  as  it  is  a  half  of  that  frog;  and  the 
very  instant  it  is  cut  off,  it  is  no  longer  a  half  of  that  frog.  Should 
he  choose  this  alternative,  he  would  be  defining  the  part  by  its 
participation  hi  the  whole;  and  this,  as  Perry  has  shown  above,1  is 
either  a  tautology  or  a  petitio  principii. 

B.  Organic  wholes  do  not  depend  upon  their  individual  parts  for 
their  total  specific  organic  character.  —  As  Perry  has  indicated,  when  a 
given  event  can  be  caused  or  maintained  by  any  one  of  several 
other  events  or  conditions,  it  is  improper  to  speak  of  the  former 
as  being  dependent  upon  any  one  of  the  latter.  Bearing  this  in 
mind,  we  observe  that  an  organism  is,  within  wide  limits,  indepen- 
dent of  the  particular  parts  composing  it.  Now,  if  you  grant  that 
it  is,  within  even  a  narrow  range,  you  have  ruled  against  the  in- 
ternalistic theory. 

Many  animals  possess  an  astonishing  regenerative  power.  Cut 
off  a  fish's  tail,  and  a  new  one  grows  ;  and,  oddly  enough,  the 
larger  the  piece  you  remove,  the  more  rapid  the  new  growth  — 
within  certain  limits,  of  course.  It  need  not  concern  us  here  how 
this  feat  is  performed.  The  significant  feature  of  it  is  that  those 
very  characteristics  of  the  organism  which,  according  to  any  internal 
theory  of  relations,  depend  most  completely  upon  the  absolute  integrity 

1  Cf.  107  above. 


424  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

of  the  entire  complex  are  the  very  characteristics  which  are  least  affected 
by  such  subtraction  of  parts.  That  is,  the  uniqueness  of  a  particu- 
lar fish  consists  predominantly  in  that  which  we  vaguely  call  its 
'  individual  life. '  This  embraces,  among  other  unknown  ele- 
ments, those  accumulations  of  behavior  which  we  call  either  '  habit ' 
or  '  experience.'  Whatever  else  of  the  creature's  nature  may  be 
suspected  of  commonness,  this  much  at  least  is  unique  and  private, 
in  every  legitimate  sense  of  these  adjectives.  Now,  so  far  is  the 
fish  from  losing  its  identity  and  its  specific  life  through  loss  of  its 
taH,  that  the  animal  is  able  to  construct  a  new  organ  which  is,  in 
structure  and  function,  identical  with  its  predecessor.  Certainly, 
this  seems  to  prove,  in  every  manner  except  the  empty  one  alluded 
to,  that  whatever  genuine  'unity'  the  organism  possesses  is  not 
dependent  upon  all  its  parts,  and  perhaps  not  upon  any  one,  but 
on  a  congeries.  It  is  typically  related  to  its  physiological  parts 
as  the  ectoderm  to  the  optic  vesicle,  in  the  frogs  on  which  Lewis 
has  demonstrated  the  existence  of  a  '  formative  stimulus.' 1  This 
investigator  demonstrated  that  any  part  of  the  ectoderm  in  the 
embryo  will  grow  the  lens  of  an  eye,  if  a  piece  of  the  optic  vesicle 
is  transplanted  beneath  it.  Described  in  logical  terminology,  the 
relation  between  vesicle  and  ectoderm  is  asymmetrical ;  in  terms 
of  physics,  the  process  of  formation  is  irreversible;  and,  meta- 
physically, neither  the  active  term  nor  the  dynamic  relation  in- 
volved depends  properly  upon  the  passive  term  of  the  complex. 

3.  It  is  not  only  the  neo-Hegelians  who  insist  that  organic  re- 
actions involve  the  'total  situation'  in  which  the  organism  finds 
itself.  This  is  held  by  not  a  few  pragmatists,  at  least  with  respect 
to  psychic  reactions,  such  as  thinking  and  perceiving.  Something 
very  much  like  it  is  also  held  by  a  few  biologists,  I  believe,  es- 
pecially those  who  lay  stress  upon  the  organic  process  of  'learning 
by  experience.'  Like  many  other  inaccurate  hypotheses,  this  one 
contains  a  certain  truth,  insistence  upon  which  is  important,  in  an 
age  which  is  tempted  to  oversimplify  organic  activity.  But,  for 

1  Lewis,  H.  W.,  Experimental  Studies  on  the  Development  of  the  Eye  in  Am- 
phibia, J.  Exp.  Zool.,  1905,  2. 


MATHEMATICAL  STIMULI  425 

all  the  merit  of  it,  the  hypothesis  suffers  from  rough-and-readiness. 
In  a  broad  way,  it  covers  a  multitude  of  facts ;  but,  strictly  con- 
strued, it  covers  absolutely  none. 

In  the  more  primitive  reactions,  only  one  feature  of  a  single 
stimulus  is  effective.  Thus,  in  the  light  striking  the  cell  wall  of 
Equisetum,  in  geotropisms,  and  in  other  familiar  instances.  Now, 
we  find  this  same  behavior  all  the  way  up  to  the  very  highest 
known  reaction ;  namely,  that  of  mature  selective  attention  and 
directive  action  in  man.  To  be  sure,  it  is  not  equally  prominent 
in  all  types  of  reaction ;  notably  in  normal  perception,  which  is  an 
adjustment  to  a  large  number  of  simultaneous  influences.  But 
this  reaction  is  the  least  typical  of  all;  and,  whether  typical  or 
not,  it  is  not  the  only  sort.  For  present  purposes,  this  is  all  I 
wish  to  show.  One  instance  of  reaction  to  only  a  part  of  a  situa- 
tion is  sufficient  to  prove  some  kind  of  organic  pluralism.  The 
problem  of  determining  just  what  manner  and  degree  of  organic 
pluralism  obtains,  is  much  too  vast  for  these  pages. 

4.  I  am  quite  aware  that,  in  asserting  planes,  angles,  numbers, 
ratios,  and  other  such  mathematical-geometrical  characters  to  be 
stimuli  of  the  peripheral  sensory  organs,  in  precisely  the  same  sense 
that  ether  waves  are,  I  am  exposing  myself  to  ridicule.  For  this 
ignominy,  though,  I  shall  blame  the  facts  themselves ;  I  see  no  other 
way  of  describing  them.  My  difficulty  is  not  in  the  least  miti- 
gated or  removed  by  the  fact  that  nearly  everybody  except  the 
new  realists  finds  it  easy  to  describe  them  as  'intellectual  ab- 
stractions/ 'constructs,'  'shorthand  expressions,'  and  the  like. 
In  an  earlier  section  of  this  essay,  it  was  pointed  out  that,  if  we 
have  a  right  to  call  the  length  of  an  ether  wave  the  cause  of  the 
color  of  the  sensed  light,  we  must  also  declare  the  direction  of  the 
wave  the  cause  of  such  phenomena  as  heliotropisms  and  the  spe- 
cial modes  of  cell  division  these  set  up.  With  this  description 
we  must  make  earnest.  When  we  say  that  length  is  a  cause  of 
color,  we  must  mean  by  length  just  that  which  a  geometer  means 
by  it.  Anything  else  is  sheer  quibbling. 

Is  it  not  clear,  now,  that  the  biologist  who  accepts  the  results 


426  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

of  pure  description  is  in  a  position  to  repudiate  almost  every  mod- 
ern philosopher's  theory  of  knowledge?  Unaided  by  esoteric 
lore  about  the  Ego,  he  can  discard  the  doctrine  of  Pearson  and 
other  positivists  that  geometrical  entities  are  'mere  shorthand 
signs '  for  peculiarities  of  sensations ;  and  the  doctrine  of  Driesch 
that  space  is  phenomenal  (i.e.  a  form  of  experience,  and  not  a 
form  of  the  physical  world  independent  of  experience) ;  and  the 
doctrine  of  Bergson  that  mathematical-geometrical  characters 
are  static  artifacts  created  by  the  'vital  force.'  In  discarding  all 
such  confused  opinions,  the  biologist  rips  out  the  very  founda- 
tions of  the  stately  theories  which  their  champions  have  erected ; 
for  these  have  all  built  on  the  belief  that  space  and  time  give  rise 
to  paradoxes  which  can  be  solved  only  by  pronouncing  the  whole 
situation  'unreal'  in  some  manner.  This  belief  is  incompatible 
with  the  evidence  upon  which  it  is  founded.  If  formal  analysis  is 
employed  in  securing  evidences  of  biological  principles,  then  the 
system  within  which  these  principles  hold  good  cannot  be  other 
than  the  one  in  which  the  evidences  themselves  occur.  Those 
thinkers  who  employ  facts  from  one  realm  of  existence,  to  prove 
that  there  is  another  wholly  different  realm,  inevitably  commit 
the  fallacy  of  distinguishing  indiscernibles.1  This  fallacy  I  shall 
now  try  to  exhibit. 

Pearson,  Driesch,  Bergson,  and  many  others  have  all  employed 
formal  analysis  and  have  accepted  as  evidence  facts  discovered  by 
it,  in  spite  of  their  broader  conclusions  against  the  validity  of  per- 
ception and  thinking.  Especially  Driesch  and  Bergson  watch  the 
behavior  of  animals  in  space  and  time,  and  from  their  directions, 
rates  of  motion,  rhythms,  and  arrangement  of  space  structures  in 
their  own  bodies  or  in  external  objects,  they  infer  that  there  is  a 
'psychoid'  or  a  'vital  force'  at  work,  that  it  strives  to  accomplish 
certain  things,  and  is  related  in  a  certain  manner  to  a  transcendent 
environment.  Now,  the  contradiction  in  this  procedure  is  palp- 

1  The  situation  just  described  is  one  which  gives  rise  to  a  self-refuting  system. 
Spaulding  has  amply  dissected  this  latter;  the  ensuing  pages  will  deal  with  a  wholly 
different  phase  of  the  matter. 


THE  FALLACY  OF  INDISCERNIBLES  427 

able.  But,  though  palpable,  it  ought  to  be  analyzed  minutely, 
inasmuch  as  Driesch  (and  possibly  Bergson)  evidently  believes 
that  its  ill  effects  are  forestalled  by  a  metaphysical  presupposition 
viz.  that,  although  all  specific  terms  and  relations  in  the  phenom- 
enal field  are  peculiar  to  this  field,  they  are  nevertheless  typical 
of  terms  and  relations  in  the  noumenal  field. 

For  instance,  in  the  latter,  there  is  a  dualism  of  some  sort,  one 
member  of  which  is  that  which  we  mean,  in  the  phenomenal  order, 
by  'psychoid'  or  'ego'  or  'vital  force/  and  the  other  member  of 
which  corresponds  (mathematically)  to  the  system  which,  in 
phenomena,  we  call  the  'environment.'  Furthermore,  the 
'psychoid'  or  'organism'  of  the  noumenal  order  is  confronted 
with  difficulties  in  its  environment  which  it  struggles  to  over- 
come, and  the  manner  in  which  it  succeeds  in  so  doing  is  typically 
like  that  which  the  biologist  observes  in  the  phenomenal  order. 
Thus  the  flatfish  has  a  noumenal  existence,  and  in  this  trans- 
cendental life  it  develops  various  activities  of  the  same  type  as 
those  which  we  call  'appetite/  'struggle  for  existence/  'sex 
impulse/  and  so  on.  Some  one  of  these  activities  involves  the 
process  of  bringing  a  part  of  its  organism  into  the  same  type  of 
relation  with  a  certain  part  of  its  environment  as  that  which  we 
designate  empirically  as  adaptation  to  the  color  and  pattern  of  the 
sea-bottom.  And  this  relation  obtains,  not  merely  in  general,  but 
in  each  moment  and  in  each  variety  of  adaptation.  That  is,  when 
the  flatfish,  having  a  certain  blue-gray  checker  pattern  on  its  back 
as  a  consequence  of  resting  upon  a  blue-gray  checker  sea-bottom, 
shifts  to  a  gray-brown  sea-bottom  of  irregular  design  and  there 
soon  develops  on  its  back  a  gray-brown  pattern  of  irregular  de- 
sign, the  difference  between  the  former  and  the  latter  noumenal 
situation  is  of  the  same  type  as  that  between  the  blue-gray  checker 
and  the  irregular  gray-brown  pattern  of  the  sea-bottoms.  Never- 
theless, the  noumenal  difference  is  not  a  difference  between  colors 
and  space  forms,  for  these  are  only  phenomenal. 

According  to  the  idealistic  biologist,  you  may  take  any  case  of 
reaction  and  describe  it  in  this  manner.  There  is  a  noumenal 


428  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

something  which  the  noumenal  organism  selects  from  a  noumenal 
complex;  and  it  is  like  that  which  we  call  oxygen,  while  the  se- 
lective process  is  like  that  which  we  describe  as  respiration.  More- 
over, the  selected  something  is  related  to  the  complex  from  which 
it  is  selected  as  oxygen  is  to  air.  Or  again :  when  the  roots  of  a 
plant  turn  toward  the  center  of  the  earth,  they  are  noumenally 
reacting  to  a  stimulus  which  though  in  itself  spaceless,  is  related 
to  the  reaction  as  the  centripetal  pull  of  gravitation  is  related  to 
the  downward  turn  of  the  roots.  Or  again :  there  is  a  noumenal 
stimulus  corresponding  (mathematically)  to  light  and  a  reaction 
(adjustment  and  selection)  corresponding  to  vision ;  and  the  former 
is  of  such  a  character  that  the  noumenal  organism  must  develop  a 
visioning  organ  (spaceless,  of  course)  with  a  large  number  of  struc- 
tural differentiations  which  correspond  to  those  differentiations 
which  we  observe  in  the  lens,  the  retina,  the  cornea,  the  aqueous 
humor,  the  ciliary  reflex,  binocular  accommodation,  and  many 
others. 

The  advantages  of  this  parallelistic  hypothesis  are  conspicuous. 
It  avoids  the  fallacy  of  exclusive  particularity,1  by  admitting  that 
the  pattern  of  the  phenomenal  series  is,  at  least  in  some  broader 
feature,  not  "mere  experience."  And,  by  the  same  concession,  it 
is  delivered  from  the  ego-centric  predicament ;  for  it  accepts  cer- 
tain processes  as  not  being  constituted,  in  their  pattern,  by  the 
cognitive  process  (though  constituted  by  it,  with  respect  to  their 
elements2). 

But  there  is  another  difficulty  which  it  does  not  shun,  and  that 
is  the  identity  of  indiscernibles.  So  far  as  I  know,  neither  the 
idealist  nor  his  opponent  has  observed  that  the  attempt  to  con- 
strue the  general  situation  of  organism-and-environment  as  a 
noumenal  one  results  in  the  establishing  of  a  one-to-one  corre- 
spondence between  the  relational  patterns  of  the  phenomenal  and 

1  Cf.  14,  above. 

8  This,  be  it  noted,  is  the  exact  reverse  of  Kant's  original  hypothesis.  Kant 
regarded  the  patterns  as  created  by  the  a  priori  synthesis,  but  the  primordial  elements 
as  somehow  connected  with  the  '  things  in  themselves.' 


THE  FALLACY  OF  INDISCERNIBLES  429 

the  noumenal  systems ;  and  that  this  correspondence  is  made  sig- 
nificant only  by  making  it  not  only  a  numerical  but  also  a  qualitative 
and  structural  correspondence. 

Take  the  adaptation  of  the  flatfish.  We  would  be  setting  up 
a  one-to-one  correspondence  between  the  phenomenal  and  the 
noumenal  orders,  if  we  were  to  declare  only  that  each  discernible 
peculiarity  in  the  flatfish's  adaptive  reaction  resulted  from  some 
peculiarity  in  its  noumenal  environment.  Schematically,  this  re- 
lation would  be :  — 

S  123456789    

S'  abcdefghi    


in  which  S  is  the  system  of  noumenal  peculiarities,  and  S'  the 
system  of  the  phenomenal.  The  extent  and  degree  of  corre- 
spondence here  is  definable  thus  :  for  each  element  in  S  there  is 
one  and  only  one  corresponding  element  in  S',  and  for  each  ele- 
ment in  S'  there  is  one  and  only  one  element  in  S. 

Now  suppose  that  we  make  no  further  assumption.  We  have 
not  advanced  by  the  minutest  degree  toward  a  characterization  of 
the  biological  situation.  We  have  not  indicated  the  specific  char- 
acter of  the  reaction  of  the  'psychoid'  or  'ego'  to  the  noumenal 
environment.  We  have  not  even  said  enough  to  indicate  that 
there  is  a  difference  between  types  of  reaction ;  e.g.  between  dodg- 
ing and  eating,  between  breathing  and  perceiving,  between  cough- 
ing and  conjecturing.  All  that  has  been  said  is  that  in  each  reac- 
tion each  peculiarity  of  it  meets  some  special  peculiarity  of  the 
objective  situation.  But  we  cannot  pronounce  the  noumenal 
operation  'vital'  in  the  biological  sense,  unless  the  phases  of  its 
activities  are  typically  related  to  the  environmental  factors  with 
which  they  deal  in  the  same  general  manner  as  the  activities  we 
see  animals  performing  are  related  to  the  environment  we  see  them 
dealing  with.  In  short,  so  long  as  we  assert  merely  that,  to  a 
reflex  involving,  say,  nine  distinct  acts  there  corresponds  an  environ- 
mental complex  having  nine  distinct  efficient  features,  we  have  said 
nothing  that  could  give  anybody  the  slightest  reason  for  inferring  that 


430  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

there  is  a  'psychoid,'  or  that  there  is  an  operation  there  like  those 
vital  processes  which  we  perceive,  or  that  the  vital  processes  differ 
from  one  another  (are  specialized),  or  that  they  differ  from  inorganic 
events. 

To  make  sure,  therefore,  that  the  problems  raised  by  reaction, 
adaptation,  evolution,  mutation,  heredity,  and  the  like  are  genuine 
problems,  the  biologist  of  conservative  idealism  is  driven  to  af- 
firm a  likeness  of  pattern  between  the  noumenal  and  the  phenom- 
enal differentiations.  Schematically,  this  likeness  may  be  thus 
stated :  — 

S  ^E:  mnop 

\R:w  x  y  z 

S'  lE'im'n'o' 

\R':w' x' y' z' 

in  which  S  is  again  the  system  of  noumenal  peculiarities,  and 
S'  the  system  of  the  phenomenal ;  and  E  and  R  the  environment 
and  reaction  phases  of  the  noumenal  system,  and  E'  and  R'  those 
of  the  phenomenal :  and  the  small  letters  are  the  distinct  features 
within  the  phases  after  whose  symbols  they  are  written.  Further- 
more, there  must  be  indicated  the  relation  between  E  and  R,  within 
each  system;  and  this  relation  must  correspond  in  kind  to  its 
numerical  correspondent  in  the  other  system.  For  instance,  this 
relation  is  sometimes  that  of  selection:  e.g.  one  or  more  of  the 
elements  of  E  is  picked  out  by  R :  w  x  y  z.  Or,  again,  the  relation 
may  be  that  of  avoiding  an  element  of  E  by  the  system  R:wxyz. 
And  so  on.  If  this  qualitative  correspondence  of  relation  is  not 
assumed,  then  surely,  the  'psychoid'  and  the  vital  process  can- 
not be  assumed  (or  inferred)  to  be  anything  more  than  products 
of  the  cognitive  act ;  for  the  evidence  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
an  organism,  distinct  from  inorganic  stuff,  is  all  derived  from  just 
these  peculiar  relations  between  spatially  demarcated  complexes 
(living  bodies)  and  their  surroundings.  There  is  a  biological 
problem,  just  because  such  bodies  select  some  environmental  ele- 
ments, move  toward  others,  perceive  others,  assimilate  others,  and 


THE  FALLACY  OF  INDISCERNIBLES  431 

ignore  others.  And  this  biological  problem  is  more  than  a  prob- 
lem of  epistemology,  in  so  far  as  these  organic  activities  are  more 
than  cognitive  distinctions  —  are,  in  short,  real  behavior  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  this  word. 

But  how  far  has  this  concession  led  the  idealistic  biologist  ?  It 
has  led  him  to  wipe  out  every  namable  difference  between  S  and  Sf. 
This  appears  as  soon  as  he  attempts  to  interpret  a  specific  case. 
Take,  once  more,  the  imitative  adaptation  of  the  flatfish.  The  ele- 
ments of  the  environment  to  which  the  creature  reacts  are,  in  terms 
of  percepts  (our  percepts  or  the  fish's,  as  you  will),  some  pebbles  of 
various  sizes  and  shapes  and  colors,  distributed  in  a  certain  irregu- 
lar manner.  The  adjustment  to  the  environment,  again  in  phe- 
nomenal terms,  consists  in  the  reproduction  of  this  same  pattern  of 
pebbles  on  the  back  of  the  flatfish  (whether  for  protection  or  for 
concealment  from  intended  prey  or  for  some  other  purpose  is  here 
utterly  irrelevant).  To  make  the  matter  still  more  specific,  let 
us  say  that  there  is  a  sprinkling  of  round  grayish  pebbles  over  a 
brownish  sand ;  the  adaptation  will  then  approximate  this  effect, 
eventuating  in  round  grayish  spots  on  a  brownish  background 
(within  morphological  limits  of  accuracy).  The  schematic  ac- 
count of  this  situation  then  is 


S  j    fjf: 

[R:  w=£x=f=y=£z 

S'.  [E'-.m'^n'^o'^  p' 

a       ID/.          /.£      1+       I  +      I 

In  which  =£  represents,  in  each  case,  a  specific  distinction  between 
the  entities  adjacently  symbolized.  Eg.  in  Er :  m'=£nf,  it  repre- 
sents the  specific  difference  between  a  round,  grayish  pebble  and 
brownish  sand.  And  in  R' :  w'  =£  x',  it  represents  the  specific  dif- 
ference between  a  round  grayish  spot  made  by  the  flatfish's  chro- 
matophores  and  the  brownish  background  made  by  adjacent 
chromatophores.  Please  note  that  it  does  not  indicate  merely 
that  the  terms  it  relates  are  logically  different.  It  represents  the 


432  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

concrete  difference  between  them ;  hence  always  specific  characters 
of  them. 

The  biologist's  difficulty  now  appears.  He  must  say  that  the 
relation  between  E  and  R  is  typically  like  that  between  Ef  and 
R',  namely  that  of  imitative  adaptation  to  E  by  R.  For,  if  it  is 
not  imitative  adaptation,  then  the  relation  of  E'  to  R'  indicates 
nothing  at  all  about  the  real  situation.  Secondly,  m  =£  n  is  typically 
like  m'  =£  n' ;  that  is,  the  difference  between  a  round  grayish  pebble 
and  brownish  sand  is,  in  some  underlying  respect,  identical  with  the 
difference  between  the  two  noumenal  entities  which  set  up  the 
noumenal  reaction.  That  this  must  be  the  case,  under  the  biol- 
ogist's supposition,  follows  from  the  hypothesis  (included  in  the 
latter)  that  the  phenomenal  system  is  the  result  of  the  dynamic 
relations  between  'things  in  themselves'  and  the  'psychoids'  or 
'egos' ;  and  hence  not  a  factor  in  the  noumenal  system.  That  is 
to  say,  the  flatfish  does  not  adapt  to  the  perceived  differences  be- 
tween round  grayish  pebbles  and  brownish  sand;  it  adapts  to  a 
peculiarity  in  the  noumenal  environment.  But,  in  order  to  use 
what  we  see  happening  when  the  flatfish  copies  the  color  of  the 
sea-bottom,  as  evidence  of  a  real  process  of  adaptation,  we  are  com- 
pelled to  say  that  the  noumenal  situation  includes  a  difference  hi 
part  identical  with  just  this  specific  color  difference ;  and  we  are 
so  compelled,  let  me  add,  just  because  this  specific  difference  be- 
tween grayish  and  brownish  is  the  one  produced  by  the  flatfish 
reaction,  and  is  moreover  the  only  clue  we  have  as  to  what  is  going 
on. 

Now,  inasmuch  as  this  is  true  of  each  distinguishable  feature  in 
the  reaction,  and  in  every  other  reaction  which  we  might  scruti- 
nize, it  follows  that  the  noumenal  system  consists  of  entities  whose 
relations  to  one  another  are,  at  least  in  some  fundamental  respect, 
identical  with  the  relations  perceived  by  an  observer ;  and  the  nou- 
menal reactions  to  those  relations  also  are,  in  some  fundamental  re- 
spect, identical  with  perceived  reactions,  and,  finally,  there  is  the 
same  fundamental  partial  identity  between  the  relation  of  E  to  R 
and  that  of  E'  to  R',  in  each  given  instance.  But  if  by  hypothesis 


THE  FALLACY  OF  INDISCERNIBLES  433 

we  do  not  know  the  noumenal  entities  that  are  involved,  we  have  no 
means  of  distinguishing  the  noumenal  order  from  the  phenomenal, 
other  than  these  very  relations.  But  these  do  not  distinguish  the 
two  systems ;  on  the  contrary,  so  far  as  they  testify,  they  identify  the 
pair,  reduce  it  to  a  single  system.  The  supposition  that  there  is  a 
system  beyond  that  which  we  perceive  thus  appears  gratuitous. 

The  reader  may  suspect  that  this  conclusion  gains  a  specious 
power  through  our  having  chosen  as  our  illustration  an  extreme 
case  of  imitative  adaptation.  To  satisfy  himself  that  this  has  not 
happened,  let  him  select  for  himself  some  other  type  of  reaction ; 
say  one  as  far  removed  as  possible  from  imitation.  Let  him  ana- 
lyze closely  the  reactions  of  a  dog  at  which  he  throws  stones.  The 
animal,  far  from  imitating  his  action,  concentrates  attention  upon 
evading  the  missiles.  The  dog  moves  its  body  now  to  the  right, 
now  to  the  left,  now  forward,  and  now  backward,  according  to  the 
trajectory  of  the  oncoming  stone.  If,  now,  these  organic  activ- 
ities are  real;  if  they  do  not  derive  their  peculiarities  from  the 
percipient  of  them,  then  the  dog  is  trying  to  avoid  being  struck  by 
stones.  If  the  latter  be  regarded  as  noumenal,  as  well  as  phenom- 
enal, then  they  behave  in  a  manner  corresponding  qualitatively 
to  the  perceived  motions  of  a  perceived  stone;  and  their  action 
includes  characteristics  in  part  (if  not  altogether)  identical  with 
such  perceived  characteristics  as  'two  degrees  to  the  right/ 
'fifteen  degrees  to  the  left,'  'upward,'  'downward,'  'parabolic 
motion,'  and  so  on.  By  what  differentia,  now,  is  such  noumenal 
activity  to  be  held  apart  in  our  minds  from  ordinary  perceived 
motions  ?  There  is  none  such.  Noumenal  and  phenomenal  are, 
for  us,  indiscernibles,  and  therefore  identical,  provided  we  assume 
the  reality  of  organic  reactions.  There  is  no  reason  for  inferring 
that  there  is  any  'situation'  beyond  that  which  we  are  directly 
familiar  with.  There  are  only  undiscerned  items  and  complica- 
tions in  the  situation  we  deal  with.  This  last  remark  must  be 
guarded  against  an  easy  misinterpretation.  It  sounds  like  episte- 
mological  positivism,  but  is  not.  I  am  not  saying  that  there 
are  only  '  phenomena, '  as  the  positivist  understands  the  term. 

2s- 


434  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

Rather  are  there  no  phenomena,  and  no  noumena,  but  only  things, 
events,  conditions,  circumstances  all  in  a  universe  which  no  mind 
has  split  into  two  realms.  The  positivist  identifies  phenomena  with 
appearances  and  then  describes  the  latter  as  '  mental  states,'  with 
the  result  that  he  limits  human  knowledge  to  '  the  immediate '  or 
to  '  pure  experiences '  and  denies  to  it  all  '  things  in  themselves.' 
Here  is  not  the  place  to  criticize  this  thesis;  suffice  it  to  state  dog- 
matically that  it  is  rejected  here. 

IV 

SOME  DEFECTS   IN   MODERN   THEORIES  OF   CONSCIOUSNESS 

1.  The  Morphological  Fallacy.  —  If,  as  is  above  maintained,  there 
is  only  one  situation  within  which  things  happen;  and  if  know- 
ing is  therefore  itself  a  factor  in  that  situation,  it  seems  pretty 
clear  that  no  analysis  of  the  inner  peculiarities  of  cognition  and 
cognized  entities  (as  such)  will,  of  itself,  explain  the  status  of 
cognition.  Here  we  must  expect  just  what  we  have  always  found 
to  hold  true  in  physics,  in  politics,  and  in  the  affairs  of  daily  life : 
things  reveal  themselves  most  nakedly,  not  in  their  own  nakedness 
but  rather  when  clothed  in  all  their  powers  and  activities  and 
relations  to  other  things. 

In  the  natural  scientist's  unqualified  acceptance  of  this  point  of 
view  with  reference  to  consciousness  no  less  than  to  electricity  or 
tariffs,  the  difference  between  descriptive  biology  and  speculative 
philosophy  appears.  The  biologist  sets  out  with  the  situation 
described  in  the  opening  of  Part  I ;  accepting  the  presence  of 
organisms  in  an  environment  and  of  many  types  of  action  between 
these,  he  undertakes  to  specify  the  relations  which  the  constituents 
of  this  enormously  complex  situation  bear,  one  to  another.  For 
him,  the  situation  within  which  cognizing  develops  is  enormously 
greater  than  the  situation  which  is  cognized  at  any  moment.  If 
he  is  interested  at  all  in  consciousness,  he  seeks  out  its  relation  to 
the  nervous  system  and  to  the  many  physical  influences  acting  on 
it  and  to  the  behavior  which  it  sets  up  or  qualifies.  For  him,  there- 


THE  MORPHOLOGICAL  FALLACY  435 

fore,  a  description  of  whatever  peculiarities  may  appear  within 
the  cognitive  field  is  useful  by  way  of  supplying  symptoms  that 
may  assist  him  in  a  diagnosis  of  that  strange  fever  called  knowing. 
But  it  never  crosses  his  mind  to  accept  those  structural  peculiari- 
ties as  sure  revelations  of  the  mind's  nature.  That  were  no  less 
folly  than  to  imagine  that  a  few  cross-sections  of  a  nerve  cell 
would  disclose  the  inmost  secrets  of  nerve  life  and  the  utility  of 
nerves  generally. 

All  that  he  knows  cries  out  against  such  an  error.  The  psychi- 
cal functions  generally  do  not  terminate  in  perception  or  any  other 
type  of  cognition,  but  in  various  bodily  readjustments ;  and  they 
oddly  seem  to  operate,  with  respect  to  any  given  matter,  so  as  to 
eliminate  themselves  after  a  while.  As  the  aim  of  thinking  is  to 
act  without  thought,  so  the  goal  of  consciousness  seems  to  appear 
in  the  progressive  dropping  of  percept  elements  and  of  members  of 
a  reflective  series,  as  the  individual  develops  a  habit  of  dealing 
with  the  particular  cognized  matters.  In  short,  they  are  con- 
spicuously steps  in  a  process,  and  are  to  be  understood  in  the 
light  of  it. 

How  unlike  all  this  is  the  procedure  of  the  philosopher  who  goes 
on  the  assumption  that  epistemology  is  fundamental  to  all  other 
sciences!  Consistently  he  believes  that  an  analysis  of  the  'con- 
tents of  consciousness'  will  disclose  the  nature  of  consciousness; 
and  so,  for  several  generations,  his  kind  have  been  describing  their 
feelings  and  the  flux  of  their  immediate  experiences,  firm  in  their 
conviction  that  introspection  will  carry  them  into  the  heart  of 
reality.  From  Locke  to  Bergson,  so  it  has  run  on,  and  —  as  any 
natural  scientist  might  guess  —  from  confusion  to  confusion. 
Strange  as  it  may  sound  in  an  introspectionist's  ears,  the  under- 
lying error  of  this  method  may  be  fairly  described  as  the  morpho- 
logical fallacy,  which  is  the  mistake  of  identifying  the  structure  of 
an  organic  cross-section  with  the  structure  and  function  of  the 
organism  as  a  whole.  The  stream  of  sensory  characters  does  not 
'look  like'  an  ordinary  cross-section,  to  be  sure;  it  is  a  very 
lively  motion,  full  of  lightning-like  flashes  and  serpentine  weavings 


436  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

of  many,  many  things.  But  it  is,  for  all  that,  only  one  phase  in 
the  much  more  comprehensive  organic  process,  and  presumably 
bears  pretty  much  the  same  relation  to  this  latter  that  the  cross- 
sectional  motions  in  some  one  plane  of  a  chemism  bear  to  the  total 
chemism.  Suppose  one  might  peer  into  a  constellation  of  cor- 
puscles with  a  microscope  of  transcendent  power.  One  would 
there  see,  from  any  one  given  point  of  view,  a  vast  tangle  of  mo- 
tions, and  yet  discover  nothing  that  would  betray  the  peculiar 
character  of  the  chemism ;  for  all  the  motions  that  were  significant 
might  occur  in  planes  parallel  to  the  observer's  line  of  vision,  and 
their  bearings  might  furthermore  lie  wholly  beyond  the  micro- 
scopic field.  Now,  just  such  a  situation  is  given  hi  every  act  of 
introspection.  An  infinity  of  elements  which  are  absent  count 
heavily  in  the  total  organic  process  of  which  the  moment's  sensa- 
tions are  but  a  phase,  and  there  is,  within  the  introspected  field, 
absolutely  nothing  which  indicates  what  those  external  factors 
are  or  how  the  present  factors  relate  to  them.  To  overlook  this 
rather  obvious  fact  and  to  construe  the  introspected  field  as  the 
legible  sign  post  on  the  highroad  to  ultimate  reality  is  to  perpetrate 
the  grossest  of  abstractions. 

There  is  not  a  little  dash  of  irony  in  this  circumstance.  For 
those  thinkers  who  devote  most  attention  to  the  structure  and 
activities  of  the  primitive  flux  of  consciousness  are  the  very  men 
who  find  most  fault  with  the  '  abstractions '  and  '  artificialities '  of 
concepts  (and  even  of  percepts).  They  insist,  with  Bergson,  that 
the  reality  of  things  consists  in  the  totality  of  their  actions.1  But, 
in  the  very  next  breath,  they  assert  that,  in  the  flux  of  immediate 
experiences,  there  appear  the  deepest  qualities  of  reality,  such  as 
'unity,'  'homogeneity,'  'indivisibility/  'pure  activity.'  Now, 
I  am  not  here  urging  a  material  argument  against  the  genuine- 
ness of  these  various  predicates;  I  am  only  saying  that,  if  one 
does  hold  to  the  biological  point  of  view,  one  cannot  so  exalt  the 
revealing  power  of  the  flux.  To  pronounce  it  the  real  and  to  label 
the  intellectual  and  other  conditions  to  which  it  leads  'purely 

1  Cf.  Mati&re  et  M&moire,  25,  etc. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  POSITION  437 

practical '  or  '  abstract '  is  possible,  not  through  formal  analysis,  but 
only  through  some  presupposition  about  the  very  situation  which  is  to 
be  analyzed.  As  was  indicated  in  Part  I,  an  analysis  of  any  event 
must  cover,  without  prejudice,  all  the  specific  stages  of  the  event. 
The  investigator  cannot  draw  a  line  between  any  two  conspicuously 
different  phases  of  it  and  call  what  lies  on  one  side  the  real  event 
and  what  lies  on  the  other  its  consequences  or  later  circumstances. 
He  has  the  right  to  do  something  like  this  only  after  he  has  dis- 
covered that  the  later  phases  do  not  depend  exclusively  upon  the 
former.  If  they  do  so  depend,  then  former  and  latter  are  equally 
real  constituents  of  a  single  process.  It  is  just  this  precaution, 
however,  which  the  introspectionist  does  not  observe. 

This  accusation  may  be  clearer,  if  put  in  the  form  of  a  figura- 
tive query.  Suppose  that  all  light  in  the  world  around  us  were 
very  much  mixed  up ;  all  wave  lengths  running  together,  and  all 
fused  in  innumerable  foci,  except  where  they  had  passed  through 
certain  rock  crystals,  liquids,  and  optic  structures  of  animals. 
Would  a  physicist  be  warranted  in  saying  that  the  inmost  nature 
of  light  is  revealed  only  in  its  interpenetrating  mode,  and  that, 
when  spread  out  in  a  spectrum,  it  had  suffered  a  serious  diminu- 
tion of  its  reality  ?  Certainly  not;  for  that  would  be  the  morpho- 
logical fallacy,  the  picking  out  of  a  single  form  from  a  variety  of 
forms  belonging  to  one  and  the  same  entity-complex  and  attrib- 
uting to  it  a  metaphysical  supremacy,  without  having  proved  that 
all  the  other  forms  are  genuinely  (not  verbally)  dependent  upon  it. 

2.  The  pragmatic  point  of  view  midway  between  the  morphological 
and  the  biological.  —  It  was  Dewey  who  broke  the  magic  spell  of 
introspectionism  and  epistemology  by  insisting  upon  the  philoso- 
phers' return  to  the  natural  and  illuminating  biological  point  of 
view.  And  he  followed  up  this  excellent  advice  with  a  reinterpre- 
tation  of  the  nature  of  reflective  thinking,  after  the  biologist's 
manner.  Wholesome  as  this  reform  has  been,  however,  it  has  not 
yet  been  thorough  enough  in  its  outworking.  The  direction  of  re- 
form has  been  sensed  more  acutely  than  has  the  way  of  pursuing  it. 
All  the  pragmatists  and  the  others  who  have  thus  far  endeavored  to 


438  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

describe  mental  operations  biologically  still  fight  with  the  weapons 
of  the  enemy.  They  investigate  the  morphology  of  the  cognitive 
field.  Thus  Dewey  accurately  describes  the  broad  situation  within 
which  cognition  arises  and  the  general  tendency  of  the  cognitive 
process ;  but  he  deems  of  little  relevancy  the  specific  structure  of  the 
material  reacted  to  and  of  the  material  that  gets  into  the  cognitive 
field.  Furthermore,  he  describes  the  reaction  chiefly  in  terms  of  the 
ideas,  meanings,  and  impulses  which  become  conscious  within  the 
reaction  itself;  and  does  not  concern  himself  with  its  relation  to 
other  reactions  of  the  organism  further  than  to  point  out  that 
these  latter  all  make  for  a  solution  of  a  difficulty,  a  readjustment. 
He  shows  how  one  idea  leads  to  another,  how  a  percept  is  tested 
by  another,  how  the  ease  of  acting  on  a  belief  lends  to  the  latter 
a  kind  of  value,  and  so  on.  He  does  not  pretend  to  indicate  the 
precise  relation  of  these  movements  to  extracognitive  conditions, 
such  as  blood  temperature,  conduction  currents,  colloids,  and  all 
the  host  of  material  factors  which  never  figure  discretely  in  the 
natural  operations  of  cognizing  of  the  natural  environment  and 
reacting  to  it. 

Now,  this  analysis  of  the  cognitive-reactive  situation  is  neces- 
sary, just  as  introspective  analysis  is.  But  it  certainly  does  not 
cover  all  the  factors  which  shape  and  reveal  what  happens  within 
the  cognitive  field.  It  carries  us  much  nearer  to  the  biological 
situation,  but  falls  short  of  the  latter  in  that  it  omits  from  con- 
sideration the  specific  relation  between  cognizing  and  other  organic 
functions,  as  well  as  the  specific  relation  between  things  '  in '  and 
things  '  out  of '  consciousness.  The  inquiry  ends  with  the  indis- 
putable observation  that  cognition  facilitates  practical  conduct, 
makes  for  success,  assists  the  agent  in  adjusting  himself  to  the 
environment.  Thus  we  are  still  left  with  the  whole  biological  issue 
on  our  hands:  what  kind  of  adjustment  does  cognition  facilitate 
which  marks  it  off  from  breathing,  perspiring,  dodging,  and  all 
the  other  bodily  activities  ?  And  hi  what  respect  does  a  thing 
cognized  differ  from  the  same  thing  uncognized,  if  at  all  ? 

3.   Analyses  by  new  realists  suffer  chiefly  from  incompleteness. 


ALEXANDER  ON  CONSCIOUSNESS  439 

—  It  has  been  observed  by  several  American  realists  that  their 
British  brethren  have  not  attacked  the  problem  of  consciousness. 
They  have  successfully  separated  the  problem  of  the  entities  from 
the  problem  of  cognizing,  and  they  have  dealt  with  the  former 
more  thoroughly  than  any  philosophers  have,  for  many,  many 
years.  But  the  latter  problem  is  neglected,  and  so,  when  broached 
at  all,  is  answered  vaguely.  Thus  it  is  when  Alexander  talks 
of  consciousness  as  a  'mental  activity.'  The  difficulty  of  this 
description  is  worth  glancing  at. 

"Now  what  makes  one  thought-process  different  from  another 
is,  I  find,  nothing  but  this  difference  of  mental  direction.  .  .  . 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  thing  called  my  consciousness  exists, 
and  that  it  is  mental  activity.  But  it  is  not  different  in  quality 
as  I  am  conscious  of  blue,  or  green,  or  the  sun.  .  .  .  My  con- 
sciousness is  one  and  the  same  thing  working  only  in  different 
directions.  ...  I  make  no  difference  between  .  .  .  activity 
itself,  activity-consciousness,  and  the  consciousness  of  ac- 
tivity." » 

Here  something  real  is  being  described,  and  accurately.  The 
organism  does  aim  at  some  things,  and  addresses  itself  to  them  in 
such  a  manner  that  they  fall  upon  the  cognitive  field.  I  should 
not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  organism  throws  such  selected 
objects  upon  the  cognitive  field  no  less  physically  than  it  throws 
them  upon  the  retinas.  Now,  the  activity  of  aiming  and  choosing 
certainly  neither  constitutes  nor  is  constituted  by  the  things 
aimed  at  or  chosen.  It  is  so  no  more  here  than  in  the  case  of 
digestion  or  respiration.  The  lungs  select  oxygen,  but  do  not 
change  their  'quality'  as  organs  with  every  change  of  air. 
They  decide  what  shall  fall  within  the  respiratory  field ;  they  shut 
out  noxious  fumes  that  assail  them  and  expel  carbon  dioxide.  And 
so  too  in  what  Alexander  calls  'mental  activity.' 

Accepting  the  description,  though,  I  must  still  wonder  whether 
it  is  not  unenlightening  to  call  consciousness  'mental  activity.' 
To  define  consciousness  as  that  which  works  in  different  directions 

1  Alexander,  S.,  The  Nature  of  Mental  Activity,  Pro.  of  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1907- 
1908,  220,  225. 


440  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

is  to  put  it  in  a  class  with  every  other  organic  activity.  It  does 
not  distinguish  it  from  the  antitoxic  reactions  of  the  blood.  Cer- 
tainly it  is  not  poetry,  but  sober  description,  to  say  that  the  anti- 
toxic chemisms  set  up  by  the  diphtheria  bacilli  entering  the  blood 
are  directed  at  these  bacilli.  Certainly  the  bactericides  get  to 
them  and  'fix  them/  and  certainly  they  do  nothing  else.  Is 
their  manufacture  not  a  directed  activity  ?  And  is  not  the  aiming 
itself  quite  different  from  anything  that  a  modern  chemist  would 
pronounce  a  chemical  action?  Is  it  not  that  peculiar,  little  un- 
derstood event  which,  in  our  ignorance,  we  cover  with  the  blanket 
term  'organic  reaction'?  And  is  not  this  term  the  more  accu- 
rate, inasmuch  as  we  do  not  know  what  the  aiming  is  ? 

Well,  if  it  is,  then  the  same  must  be  said  of  the  term,  'mental 
activity.'  The  aiming  at  things,  in  order  to  know  them,  cer- 
tainly is  not  the  same  as  knowing  them.  Neither  is  it  the  same  as 
thinking  about  them,  for  the  sake  of  more  information.  It  is  no 
more  like  cognizing  than  attending  is  like  seeing.  Indeed,  I 
should  call  it  a  case  of  attention,  provided  people  would  kindly  di- 
vest this  term  of  its  unfortunate  psychological  disguise.  Attending 
is  a  stretching  out  toward  something ;  it  is  not  a  feeling  nor  a  know- 
ing nor  a  thinking,  any  more  than  it  is  a  digesting  or  a  breathing. 
It  is  rather  the  going  to  meet  or  to  find  some  environmental  char- 
acter. It  cannot  be  described  in  terms  of  the  character  sought, 
for  this  varies  from  case  to  case,  while  the  attending  does  not.  It 
would  conduce  to  clarity,  both  in  biology  and  psychology,  if  at- 
tention were  admitted  to  be  a  general  organic  attitude  and  not  a 
specialized  function  like  cognizing.  We  might  then  speak  of  the 
phagocytes  as  attending  to  bacteria  without  our  falling  into  gro- 
tesque panpsychism  or  idealism.  But  there  is  little  hope  of  such  a 
clearing  up.  Psychologists  will  continue  to  bungle  along,  firm  in 
the  conviction  that  whatever  appears  in  connection  with  psychic 
activities  is  necessarily  psychic,  just  as  the  physicist  thinks  that 
all  occurrences  in  the  material  order  are  exclusively  physical. 

American  realists  have  recognized  that  the  problem  of  conscious- 
ness is  the  problem  of  finding  the  differentia  of  the  cognitive  activ- 


WOODBRIDGE'S  THEORY  441 

ity  and  that  of  the  cognitive  field.  And  so  they  have  been  trying 
to  discern  the  unique  contribution  which  cognition  makes  to  life 
and  to  the  entities  which  it  groups  peculiarly.  At  least  three, 
Woodbridge,  Holt,  and  Montague,  have  named  characteristics 
which  are  truly  enlightening;  of  these  I  would  here  mention  only 
the  one  Woodbridge  brings  out,  as  the  others  are  discussed  else- 
where in  this  volume. 

In  a  noteworthy  essay x  Woodbridge  sets  forth  that  conscious- 
ness involves  a  type  of  relation  between  entities  which  obtains 
nowhere  else;  namely,  the  relation  of  implying  one  another.  That 
the  relation  referred  to  is  really  present,  and  that  it  is  significant, 
I  have  no  doubt.  But  it  stands  in  need  of  extensive  explanation, 
even  as  the  relations  pointed  out  by  Holt  and  Montague  do.  We 
must  know  more  about  it,  before  it  illuminates  us.  For  instance, 
is  it  what  logicians  mean  by  implication  ?  Is  it  established  by  a 
psychic  reaction,  or  revealed  by  it,  or  is  it  the  reaction  itself  ? 
How  is  it  connected,  if  at  all,  with  what  the  psychologist  calls 
'  simple  association '  ?  Woodbridge  raises  these  queries  in  his 
readers'  minds  when  he  says  that  bread  implies  nourishment,  and 
that  implication  is  deeper  than  the  inferential  relation  between 
propositions.  But  I  do  not  believe  the  queries  can  be  answered, 
until  the  whole  biological  situation  has  been  resurveyed,  and  the 
relations  between  environment  and  organism  stated  more  precisely. 
This,  if  I  mistake  not,  is  Woodbridge's  own  belief.  And  the  same 
restrictive  judgment  must  be  passed  upon  every  other  realistic 
hypothesis.  Consciousness  is  not  described  in  terms  of  the  total 
organic  situation  out  of  which  it  develops  and  of  which  it  is  an  in- 
tegral phase.  One  hypothesis  deals  only  with  the  relation  of  per- 
cept to  object,  in  terms  of  these  alone.  Another  analyzes  simply 
the  structure  of  logical  entities.  A  third  considers  merely  the 
manipulating  of  percepts  in  an  organic  readjustment.  A  fourth 
focuses  upon  the  psychophysical  processes.  Is  it  not  possible, 
therefore,  that  all  may  be,  on  the  whole,  equally  valid  just  because 
each  attends  to  something  different  ?  And  may  their  harmony  not 

1  The  Nature  of  Consciousness.,  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol.,  etc.,  2,  119. 


442  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

appear,  as  soon  as  consciousness  is  investigated,  as  a  feature  of  a 
big  situation  which  involves  not  only  feelings  and  flux  and  think- 
ing, but  also  an  organism,  —  blood  and  sinew  and  nerves  and  im- 
pulses and  appetites,  —  and  also  physical  things,  —  electricity, 
light,  matter  ?  At  all  events,  the  bare  possibility  of  this  is  a  suffi- 
cient warrant  for  attempting  to  realize  it. 

4.  The  biological  point  of  view.  —  It  must  now  be  clear  that  no 
investigation  of  consciousness  is  truly  biological  unless  it  first  de- 
scribes consciousness  in  terms  of  the  three  basic  factors :  stimulus, 
reagent,  and  organic  instrument  (structure-function).  The  prob- 
lem may  be  stated  in  three  corresponding  forms. 

First  of  all,  consciousness  involves  a  specific  environment.  This 
we  must  discover  and  describe.  The  cognitive  function  copes  with 
some  peculiarity  of  the  environment  which  no  other  function 
handles.  As  the  stomach  does  something  which  no  other  organ 
does,  so  too  the  central  nervous  system,  and,  more  specifically,  the 
cognitive  reagent. 

Secondly,  consciousness  involves  a  directed  activity.  That  is,  it 
is  not  simply  set  going  by  some  stimulus;  but,  when  set  going, 
it  heads  somewhere.  Perhaps  it  is  not  purposive ;  but  assuredly 
it  has  a  direction  just  as  truly  as  each  individual  case  of  magnetic 
pull  or  of  gravitation  has  a  direction.  (Whether  its  direction  is 
purely  spatial,  or  spatio-temporal,  or  of  some  other  order,  is  a 
special  question.)  It  'gets  somewhere.'  It  accomplishes  some- 
thing. But  what  ?  This  also  is  to  be  discovered  and  described. 

Finally,  consciousness  involves  the  operation  of  an  organic 
structure,  and,  according  to  all  that  we  know  about  structures 
and  functions,  the  structure  somehow  modifies  that  which,  in 
affecting  it,  eventuates  in  cognition.  Now  are  any  peculiarities  of 
consciousness  due  to  the  structure  ?  If  not,  what  does  the  struc- 
ture accomplish?  Once  more  we  must  discover  and  describe. 

From  the  biological  point  of  view,  these  three  problems  are  ir- 
reducible and  equally  important.  Let  any  one  of  them  be  ignored, 
and  the  presumptions  are  heavily  against  anybody's  answering 
unequivocally  the  two  central  questions :  In  what  respect  does 


BIOLOGICAL  STATUS  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS      443 

an  entity  'in'  consciousness  differ  from  an  entity  'out  of  con- 
sciousness ?    And  what  does  consciousness  accomplish  ? 


THE   BIOLOGICAL   STATUS  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

THE  reader  will  kindly  note  that  this  section  proposes  to  discuss 
only  the  status  of  consciousness  in  the  realm  of  life.  It  will  offer 
no  completed  hypothesis,  but  will  only  describe  the  conditions 
under  which  consciousness  arises.  The  most  that  can  be  claimed 
of  this  description  is  that  it  narrows  very  closely  the  range  of  pos- 
sible interpretations. 

1.  The  general  structure  of  the  environment.  —  It  is  a  singular  fact 
that  no  modern  philosopher  nor  speculative  biologist  has  formally 
analyzed  the  broader  features  of  the  world  in  which  individual 
organism  exists.  No  fact  shows  so  strikingly  as  this  one  how  the 
anthropocentric  world-view  has  dominated  contemporary  thought. 
Pick  up  any  textbook  on  psychology,  and  you  will  find  extensive 
descriptions  of  sensory  qualities  and  nervous  structures,  but  of  the 
external  field  of  stimulating  entities  not  a  word,  save  such  plati- 
tudes as  these :  "  Luminous  bodies  affect  the  retina  with  ether 
waves."  —  "Pulses  of  air  are  heard  as  sounds,"  etc.  To  be  sure, 
the  experimental  psychologist  is  constantly  driven  to  analyze 
special  physical  features,  in  connection  with  his  special  problem. 
He  informs  himself  about  acids,  salts,  and  alkaloids,  if  studying 
taste  and  smell ;  and  about  light,  when  investigating  vision.  But 
always  he  attends  to  their  minute  peculiarities,  never  to  their 
common  and  collective  properties  and  conditions  of  activity,  with 
respect  to  organisms.  By  such  properties  and  conditions  I  mean 
such  as  either  shoot  through  all  or  most  of  the  physical  entities  with 
which  organisms  deal,  or  else  are  involved  in  the  coexistence  and 
coactivity  of  those  entities. 

Three  properties  or  conditions  of  this  sort  are  (a)  space,  (6)  time, 
and  (c)  the  causal  relation.  There  may  be  many  others,  but  these 


444  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

are  obvious ;  and  so,  too,  is  their  biological  importance.  Every 
living  creature  finds  itself  in  a  world  full  of  things  distant  from  it 
and  from  one  another  in  space  and  in  time.  Some  of  these  things 
it  seeks,  others  it  shuns;  and  the  precise  relation  of  particular 
things  to  its  body  in  space  and  in  time  is  a  life-or-death  matter. 
Be  one's  metaphysical  theory  about  space  and  time  what  it  will, 
in  any  case  one  must  grant  that  potatoes  in  the  lungs  instead  of  in 
the  stomach  would  affect  a  man's  welfare  more  substantially  than 
the  loftiest  philosophy  ever  written;  and  that  the  history  of 
species  and  of  civilization  might  be  largely  written  in  terms  of 
'before'  and  'after.'  The  individuals  which  have  survived  and 
shape  empires  and  ideals  are  those  whose  ancestors  have  been 
reaching  conclusions,  having  inspirations,  carrying  out  plans  of 
action,  winning  help,  reaching  places  of  safety  a  little  sooner  than 
somebody  else.  As  for  the  value  of  mastery  over  causes,  this  has 
been  dilated  upon  since  Roger  Bacon ;  and  has  never  been  doubted 
by  the  ordinary  man. 

Now,  is  it  not  likely  that,  just  as  the  special  differentiations  of  or- 
ganic form  and  function  are  connected  with  special  characters  of  ele- 
ments in  the  environment,  so  the  more  inclusive  are  connected  with  the 
commoner  features  of  the  environment  as  a  whole?  And,  inasmuch 
as  every  organ  save  the  central  nervous  system  deals  specifically  with 
some  special  material  which  encounters  it  from  moment  to  moment, 
and  inasmuch  as  the  central  nervous  system  specifically  reacts  to  all 
kinds  of  materials,  even  those  in  remote  spaces  and  remote  times ;  is 
it  not  probable  that  the  deepest  utility  as  well  as  the  deepest  peculiarities 
of  cognition  can  be  understood  only  through  an  analysis  of  the  deepest 
peculiarities  of  the  whole  space-and-time  order  of  nature? 

These  questions  have  never  before  been  raised,  at  least  not  with 
the  earnestness  which  they  deserve.  Consider,  for  instance,  the 
manner  in  which  philosophers  have  scrutinized  space.  With  the 
exception  of  the  Aristotelians  and  the  materialists,  who  have  at 
least  accepted  the  full  reality  of  space,  even  though  they  have  not 
reckoned  sufficiently  with  it,  philosophers  have  handled  this  mode 
of  the  environment  in  one  or  more  of  the  following  three  ways: 


ANALYSIS  OF  ENVIRONMENT  445 

(a)  they  have  depicted  its  supposed  paradoxes  —  so  from  Zeno  to 
Bergson ;  or  (6)  they  have  regarded  it  as  either  an  idea  or  a  mere 
form  of  apprehension  and  have  traced  its  genesis  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  its  psychic  constituents  —  thus  from  Locke  through  Kant 
to  modern  psychology  and  metaphysic;  or  finally  (c)  they  have 
joined  with  the  mathematicians  and  have  analyzed  the  pure  form 
of  externality,  as  it  is  conceived  in  geometry,  but  have  not  regarded 
their  results  as  having  any  bearing  upon  the  biological  situation. 
In  this  persuasion  Mr.  Russell  finds  himself  when  he  declares  that 
protective  geometry  is  'wholly  a  priori,'  taking  nothing  from  expe- 
rience and  having  '  like  Arithmetic,  a  creature  of  the  pure  intellect 
for  its  object.'  * 

Of  these  three  attitudes,  only  the  last  bears  off  in  the  right  direc- 
tion. Certainly  geometers  have  analyzed  space  with  exceeding 
rigor.  But,  when  they  have  not  believed  their  subject  matter 
purely  intellectual,  they  have  not  been  interested  sufficiently  in 
its  possible  biological  bearings  to  describe  the  environment  in 
terms  of  it.  Indeed,  most  of  them  are  so  sure  that  geometry  is 
'  a  creature  of  the  pure  intellect '  that  they  look  with  pity  upon  the 
thick-witted  realist  who,  doubting  that  the  pure  intellect  has  any 
creatures  of  its  own,  seeks  the  facts  of  geometry  in  the  world-order. 

2.  The  environment  as  a  space  complex. — Suppose  we  look  at  the 
spatial  bearings  of  the  world  in  which  animals  have  to  seek  their 
food  and  drink  and  shelter  and  mates.  And  let  us  try  to  find  just 
those  relations  which  obviously  'make  a  difference'  or  'generate 
a  problem '  for  the  creature  which  has  to  inhabit  the  space.  First 
to  be  noticed  are  these : 

(a)  Objects  important  to  life  are  mostly  masses  of  matter  giving 
off  various  types  of  energy.  (The  term  'energy'  is  here  used  in 
its  colorless  meaning,  and  does  not  imply  any  physical  hypothesis.) 
Thus,  all  articles  of  food  and  drink ;  each  is  located  narrowly  at 
some  region  in  space.  So,  too,  are  most  places  of  shelter  and  refuge ; 
so  too  are  other  animals,  foes,  prey,  clan  mates,  and  creatures  of  the 

1  Foundations  of  Geometry,  Cambridge,  1897,  118.  Perhaps  Mr.  Russell  would 
qualify  this  statement  to-day. 


446  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

opposite  sex.  So,  too,  is  the  sun,  on  whose  light  life  depends.  So 
too  are  most  objects  which  assist  an  animal  in  finding  its  bearings 
and  making  its  way  up  and  down  the  earth.  Indeed,  there  seems 
to  be  only  one  universal  commodity  which  is  not  localized  but 
diffuse,  and  that  is  air. 

(6)  Most  of  these  objects  are  centers  of  influences  extending 
far  beyond  the  masses  of  matter  which  men  commonly  call  'the 
things  themselves.'  For  instance,  the  sun  sends  forth  ether 
vibrations ;  objects  reflect  these  vibrations  according  to  their  own 
chemical  structure  and  so  give  off  peculiar  configurations  of  light 
(color-form  complexes).  Fire  emits  heat,  and  mountain  lakes 
make  their  coolness  felt  at  a  distance.  Flowers  send  forth 
odors,  and  so  do  most  animals. 

(c)  In  most  cases,  these  influences  go  out  in  all  directions  of  space. 
The  objects  are,  in  the  wider  sense  of  the  term,  radioactive. 

(d)  An  animal  is  related  to  practically  all  the  elements  of  its 
environment  through  these  radial  lines  of  energy.     The    only 
elements  to  which  it  is  not  so  related  are  those  which  it  takes 
bodily  into  its  organism.     And  even  with  these  it  is   radially 
related  up  to  the  moment  of  receiving  them. 

(e)  In  all  observed  instances,  the  character  of  any  part  of  a 
given  energy  radius  is  a  (continuous)  function  of  the  distance  from 
the  energy  center.     (It  may  at  the  same  time  be  a  function  of  some 
other  variable  too.)     Heat,  light,  gravitation,  odor,  and  whatever 
other  qualities  are  radiated  vary  from  point  to  point  along  each 
energy  radius  in  some  inverse  ratio  to  the  distance  of  the  particu- 
lar point  from  the  energy  center. 

(/)  Each  energy  radius  is,  in  its  geometrical  form,  a  real  line. 
That  is  to  say,  with  respect  to  its  spatial  features  alone,  it  is  a  con- 
tinuous series,  viz.  one  which  satisfies  Dedekind's  postulate,  the 
postulate  of  density,  and  Huntington's  postulate  of  linearity.1 
Unlike  a  pure  geometrical  line,  however,  it  is  infinite  in  only  one 
direction  at  most,  and  possibly  finite  in  both  directions.  Strictly 

1  Cf .  Huntington,  E.  V.,  The  Continuum  as  a  Type  of  Order,  Annals  of  Math., 
Second  Series,  6,  15. 


ANALYSIS  OF  ENVIRONMENT  447 

speaking,  then,  it  is  a  segment  of  a  geometrical  line.  But,  inas- 
much as  the  environment  of  any  given  animal  lies  wholly  within 
such  segments  and  the  problems  generated  by  space  derive  from 
the  linearity  of  the  segments  (as  will  be  shown),  this  circumstance 
makes  no  material  difference  in  our  present  inquiry. 

(gr)  Each  energy  radius  is  not  only  a  spatial  line,  in  the  above 
sense,  but  also  a  continuum  of  physical  qualities  other  than  spatial. 
Superimposed,  as  it  were,  upon  the  point  series  between  my  eye 
and  the  sun  is  a  series  of  ether  conditions.  While  this  superim- 
posed continuum  may  not  be  of  the  same  structure  as  the  point 
system,  it  is  always  some  kind  of  a  continuum  or  a  series  of  con- 
tinua  which  pass  from  one  to  the  other  through  'critical  points' 
(which  involve  some  kind  of  qualitative  change). 

(h)  Energy  radii  from  indefinitely  many  energy  centers  inter- 
sect, sometimes  without  reciprocal  modification,  sometimes  with 
it.  Rays  of  light  intersecting  in  a  focus  are  not  altered  by  that  mere 
act.  But  they  are  when  passing  through  glass,  which  refracts, 
reflects,  and  absorbs  certain  of  their  characters. 

Two  types  of  problem  are  generated  by  this  circumstance  :  first, 
the  locating  of  an  energy  center;  and  secondly,  discovering  the 
specific  characters  of  an  energy  center,  as  distinct  from  those  de- 
rived from  intersections  with  radii  from  other  centers. 

These  two  problems  just  named  are,  strictly  speaking,  not 
generated  by  the  environmental  character  exclusively ;  but  rather 
by  it  in  combination  with  the  specific  needs  of  the  animal.  Though 
the  latter  do  not  belong  in  our  present  enumeration,  I  shall  cite 
them  because  they  derive  partly  from  an  important  quality  of 
physical  qualities.  The  animal  sometimes  needs  to  get  an  object 
'in  itself  (that  is,  the  energy  center)  and  sometimes  it  needs  only 
a  distant  influence  of  such  an  object.  Consider  a  man  and  a 
hearth  fire,  on  a  bitter  winter's  night.  So  long  as  he  wishes  only 
to  warm  his  hands  or  his  back,  his  problem  is  not  to  get  the  burn- 
ing wood  as  he  might  get  food,  but  rather  to  hold  just  the  most 
favorable  distance  from  it.  If,  however,  a  spark  shoots  out  on  to 
a  rug,  his  problem  is  to  pick  it  up  or  stamp  it  out ;  and  now  it  is 


448  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

not  an  influence  but  an  energy  center  itself  to  which  he  must  adjust 
himself.  Likewise  with  respect  to  the  other  than  spatial  charac- 
ters of  the  fire.  Sometimes  he  must  know  whether  it  is  wood  or 
coal  that  is  burning. 

(i)  No  single  point  on  an  energy  radius  determines,  contains, 
or  indicates  its  own  distance  from  its  own  energy  center.  For 
distance  between  points  is  an  external  relation  in  both  the  purely 
logical  and  the  geometrical  sense  of  the  term.  The  points,  as  such, 
do  not  constitute  the  distance,  nor  are  they  constituted  by  it ;  and 
the  distance  is  their  externality,  not  their  position. 

(j)  No  single  point  on  an  energy  radius  determines,  contains, 
or  indicates  its  own  direction  from  the  energy  center.  This  may 
be  simply  stated  in  the  usual  language  of  geometry.  Two  points 
are  required  to  determine  a  line;  for  the  line,  as  Mr.  Russell 
phrases  it,  "may  be  regarded  as  a  relation  of  the  two  points,  or  an 
adjective  of  the  system  formed  by  both  together."  *  Hence,  if 
only  one  point  is  given,  all  lines  passing  through  it  are  qualita- 
tively indistinguishable. 

Observations  (i)  and  (j)  do  not  depend  upon  geometrical  demon- 
stration for  their  accuracy.  Anybody  may  verify  them  empiri- 
cally. In  his  Essay  toward  a  New  Theory  of  Vision,  Berkeley 
said  :  "  Distance  being  a  line  directed  endwise  to  the  eye,  it  projects 
only  one  point  on  the  fund  of  the  eye  —  which  point  remains  in- 
variably the  same,  whether  the  distance  be  longer  or  shorter."  2 
Though  the  definition  of  distance  the  Bishop  here  gives  is  inaccu- 
rate, the  gist  of  his  remark  is  correct.  Indeed,  it  holds  good  not 
only  of  single  points  but  of  many  (though  not  all)  point-complexes. 
Thus,  taken  in  isolation,  a  perceived  line  may  be  a  short  one  near 
at  hand  or  a  longer  one  farther  away  or  a  prodigious  stretch  at  a 
great  distance.  Only  certain  combinations  of  real  points  in  cer- 
tain relations  determine  their  energy  centers'  directions  and  dis- 
tances. Hence, 

1  Foundations  of  Geometry,  120. 

1  His  inference  from  this,  namely,  that  distance  could  not  be  seen,  was  unwar- 
ranted; and  for  reasons  which  will  soon  be  indicated. 


THE  PROJECTIVE  RELATION  449 

(K)  Direction  and  distance  are  functions  (mathematical)  of  certain 
types  of  complexes,  at  least  insofar  as  the  kind  of  system  above  de- 
scribed is  concerned.  So  stated,  the  fact  will  strike  many  persons 
as  paradoxical.  And  yet  it  is  nothing  but  the  exemplification, 
in  the  physical  world,  of  the  facts  on  which  projective  geometry 
is  founded.  These  facts  appear,  in  brief,  to  be  identical  with  those 
which  describe  the  environment  in  its  dynamic  relation  to  organ- 
isms. Indeed,  the  latter  relation  can  be  stated  wholly  in  terms 
of  projective  geometry;  and  when  so  stated,  it  reveals  just  that 
peculiar  state  of  affairs  which  involves  consciousness. 

(/)  The  projective  relation  obtains  in  systems  of  externality  which 
do  not  contain  metrical  values.  —  Geometers  have  recognized  that 
quantity  is  logically  posterior  to  quality,  at  least  in  spatial  rela- 
tions. Qualitative  identity  is  presupposed  by  every  quantitative 
identity.  "Hence,"  to  quote  Russell,  "all  figures  whose  differ- 
ences can  be  exhaustively  described  by  quantity  .  .  .  must  have 
an  identity  of  quality,  and  this  must  be  recognizable  without  an 
appeal  to  quantity.  It  follows  that,  by  defining  the  word  'quality' 
in  geometrical  matters,  we  shall  discover  what  sets  of  figures  are 
projectively  indiscernible."  Now  it  appears  that  the  pure  qual- 
ities of  space  are  (a)  points  and  (6)  their  differentiating  relation, 
namely,  the  line.  The  relation  between  two  points  is  the  straight 
on  which  they  lie.  "This,"  Russell  says,  "gives  that  identity  of 
quality  for  all  pairs  of  points  on  the  same  straight  line  which  is 
required.  ...  If  only  two  points  are  given,  they  cannot,  without 
the  use  of  quantity,  be  distinguished  from  any  two  other  points 
on  the  same  straight  line ;  for  the  qualitative  relation  between  any 
two  such  points  is  the  same  as  for  the  original  pair,  and  only  by  a 
difference  of  relation  can  points  be  distinguished  from  one  another." 2 
Conversely,  too,  a  straight  is  only  the  relation  between  two  of  its 

1 1  do  not  attempt  to  demonstrate  here  that  projective  geometry  is  non-quanti- 
tative. I  shall  only  indicate  it  and  leave  the  reader  to  such  treatises  as  Veblen, 
O.,  and  Young,  J.  W.,  A  Set  of  Assumptions  for  Projective  Geometry,  Amer.  J. 
of  Math.,  1908,  347,  etc. ;  Russell,  B.,  loc.  cit.,  Ill,  Section  A. ;  etc.  The  latter  is 
recommended  to  the  layman. 

*Loc.  cit.,  130. 
20 


450  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

points  and  is  distinguished  from  another  only  by  them.  Hence, 
given  only  one  point,  any  pair  of  straights  is  qualitatively  indis- 
tinguishable from  any  other. 

I  wish  to  emphasize  at  once  that  there  is  nothing  mysterious 
in  this  fact,  and  also  that  it  is  not  peculiar  to  a  recondite  branch  of 
geometry.  It  is  true  of  all  kinds  of  entities.  A  character  which 
defines  an  entity  as  a  member  of  a  certain  class  cannot  distinguish 
it  within  that  same  class.  Suppose  we  learned  just  what  it  is  that 
makes  a  horse  a  horse;  that  is,  the  complex  of  characters  which 
distinguishes  the  equine  quality  from  the  asinine,  the  bovine,  etc.1 
We  should  not  possess  the  information  necessary  to  distinguish 
a  Percheron  from  a  Clydesdale,  or  a  Morgan  from  a  French  Coach. 
Qualitatively  —  which  here  means  'with  respect  to  equinity'  —  all 
horses  are,  qua  horses,  indistinguishable.  A  platitude  of  elemen- 
tary logic  in  this  context,  our  observation  becomes  enormously 
difficult  and  obscure  to  many  thinkers  when  it  refers  to  space 
classes.  They  cannot  perceive  that  what  makes  a  position  a  posi- 
tion and  a  line  a  line  is  not  the  same  as  that  which  makes  one  point 
ten  feet  from  another,  or  to  the  left  of  another.  And,  missing  this, 
they  are  simply  bewildered  by  our  earlier  statement  that  direc- 
tions and  distances  (spatial  quantities)  are  functions  of  point-line 
complexes,  not  of  point-quality  and  linearity. 

(m)  In  both  pure  geometrical  projection  and  physical  projection 
there  are  certain  complex  relations  which  are  constant  qualitatively, 
regardless  of  the  distance  or  direction  of  the  related  elements 
from  the  projection  center.  In  pure  geometry  the  fundamental 
relation  of  this  type  is  the  anharmonic  ratio.  If  through  any 
four  points  in  a  straight  four  straights  be  passed  meeting  in 
any  point,  and  if  another  straight  meet  these  same  four,  then  the 
four  new  points  of  intersection  have  the  same  anharmonic  ratio 
as  the  original  four  points.2  Or  conversely ;  all  lines  cutting  any 

1  For  the  present  argument  it  is  irrelevant  that  organic  types  are  not  sharp, 
stable  things,  as  they  were  once  supposed. 

*  For  a  proof  that  this  ratio  does  not  involve  distances  or  angles,  cf .  Russell,  loc. 
cit.,  122,  125. 


THE  PROJECTIVE  RELATION  451 

four  lines  that  meet  in  one  point  have  therein  the  same  anharmonic 
ratio.  In  physical  projections  wholly  different  qualities  of  radial 
systems  exhibit  a  logically  similar  constancy.  Thus,  a  pencil  of 
light  rays  from  a  given  luminous  point  may  be  cut  at  any  point  by 
a  curve  whose  generating  center  is  the  luminous  point;  and  the 
sum  of  heat  or  light  energy  at  all  such  cuts  is  a  constant. 

How  many  such  projective  constants  there  are,  nobody  knows ; 
but  geometry,  physics,  and  psychology  bring  forward  facts  indi- 
cating that  the  variety  of  types  is  exceedingly  great.  When  we 
come  to  discuss  the  peculiarities  of  the  cognitive  field,  we  shall 
encounter  some  striking  kinds.  Comparing  them,  we  discern  a 
highly  significant  fact  which,  on  closer  inspection,  turns  out  to  be 
no  accidental  feature  of  the  projected  matter  but  an  intrinsic 
feature  of  the  projective  relation.  It  is  this: 

(n)  The  relations  which  are  constant  and  determinate  in  any  given 
projection  are,  in  the  logical  sense,  transverse  to  the  lines  of  projec- 
tion.— To  make  this  clear,  let  us  look  at  the  generic  properties  of 
projection  as  exemplified  in  the  very  simple  specimen;  namely, 
the  projection  of  points  upon  a  plane.  As  its  properties  have  been 
thoroughly  worked  out,  we  may  turn  to  it  without  fear  of  confu- 
sion. I  shall  employ  special  names  as  generic  terms  which,  when 
applied  to  cases  of  projection  of  higher  order,  will  not  be  colored 
with  the  specific  suggestions  of  geometry. 

(i)  If,  from  a  fixed  point  S,  lines  be  drawn  to  different  points, 
A,B,C,  •  •  and  if  these  lines  are  cut  by  a  plane  in  points  A',  Bf,  C', 
.  .  .,  the  latter  are  termed  the  projects  of  the  given  points  upon 
the  plane. 

(ii)  I  shall  designate  as  'the  projection  system'  the  total  com- 
plex consisting  of  the  three  parts :  (a)  the  fixed  point  S,  (6)  the 
collection  of  points,  A,  B,  C,  -  •  -  ;  and  (c)  the  plane  of  the  points 
A',  B',  C',  •  •  •  I  shall  designate  the  collection  of  points,  A,  B,  C, 

•  •  -  ,  as  the  projected  complex;    and  the  collection  of  points, 
A',  Bf,  Cf,  •  •  •  ,  the  project-complex ;   and  the  plane  of  A',  B',  C', 

•  •  •  as  the  projection  field.    The  point  S  I  shall  name  the  pro- 
jectorial  referent. 


452  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

(Hi)  The  term  'order'  shall  designate  the  order  of  dimen- 
sionality of  a  complex.  Thus,  Euclidean  space  is  of  the  third 
order ;  the  space-tune  system  is  of  the  fourth  order  (at  least)  ; 
and  so  on. 

These  are,  I  believe,  all  the  fundamental  definitions  needed  for 
an  understanding  of  the  generic  properties  of  projection  (as  dis- 
tinct from  specifically  spatial  projection).  What,  now,  are  these 
generic  properties  ?  They  are  four  in  number  : 

(i)  If  the  projected  complex  is  of  the  nth  order,  then  the  pro- 
jection field  may  be  of  the  (n  +  a)th  order. 

This  follows  directly  from  the  fact  that  the  projection  field  is 
external  to  the  projected  complex  and  also  to  the  projectorial 
referent.  This  externality  may  constitute  a  dimension  over  and 
above  the  dimensions  of  either  the  projected  complex  or  of  the 
projectorial  referent.  This  is  readily  seen  in  the  specific  case  of 
point  projections  upon  a  plane. 

This  projection  system  is  of  the  third  order,  for  the  plane  (Ar,  B', 
C'  D')  is  external  to  both  S  and  the  points  A,  B,  C,  D.  Hence  the 
line  AS  and  that  plane  form  a  tri-dimensional  complex. 

(ii)  In  this  construction  the  projection  field  necessarily  is  (a) 
transverse  to  the  relation  between  the  projected  complex  and  the 
projectorial  referent,  and  (6)  external  to  both  of  these.  It  is  clearly 
seen  in  the  specific  case  above  given.  The  elements  of  the  pro- 
jected complex  there  are  points,  but  the  relations  between  the  ele- 
ments of  the  project  complex  are  lines.  Secondly,  the  relation 
between  any  given  element  of  the  projected  complex  and  the  pro- 
jectorial referent  is  a  line,  but  a  line  of  a  plane  other  than  the 
projection  field  and  hence  of  another  dimension  than  any  in  the 
latter.  It  is  also  worth  while  to  note,  thirdly,  that  the  relations 
between  the  elements  (points)  of  the  projected  complex  are  lines 
of  other  planes  than  that  of  the  projection  field. 

(in)  The  relations  between  the  elements  of  the  project-complex 
are  of  a  different  dimension  from  (a)  the  relations  within  the  ele- 
ments of  the  projected  complex,  and  (6)  the  relations  between  the 
projected  complex  and  the  projectorial  referent. 


THE  LIFE  SITUATION  PROJECTIVE  453 

(iv)  The  relations  of  elements  to  one  another  within  the  pro- 
ject-complex are  a  function  of  (a)  the  character  of  the  projection 
field,  (6)  the  relation  of  the  projectorial  referent  to  this  field,  (c) 
the  relation  of  the  projectorial  referent  to  the  projected  complex, 
and  (d)  the  relation  of  the  elements  of  the  projected  complex  to 
one  another.  Thus,  in  the  figure  above,  the  relation  of  A'  to  B' 
depends  upon  the  structure  of  the  projection  field  —  e.g.  whether 
it  is  a  plane  or  a  certain  curved  surface  or  some  other  type.  No 
less  does  it  depend  upon  the  distance  and  direction  of  S  from  the 
projection  field  and  from  the  projected  complex,  and  upon  the 
relation  of  A  to  B. 

These  properties  of  a  projection  system  are,  I  believe,  strictly 
generic.  They  are  to  be  found  wherever  there  is  any  kind  of  a 
projective  field  typically  related  to  a  projectorial  referent  and  to  a 
projected  complex.  And  it  matters  not  what  the  specific  dimen- 
sions of  the  complex  are ;  whether  they  be  the  familiar  space  and 
time  dimensions,  or  some  other  kinds,  such  as  color  dimensions. 
The  properties  seem  to  be  those  of  'pure  projection,'  just  as  com- 
mutativity  is  a  property  of  pure  number  and  free  mobility  a  prop- 
erty of  pure  space.  Now,  if  this  is  a  correct  opinion,  it  is  natural 
to  wonder  whether  some  specimens  of  projection  are  to  be  found 
outside  of  pure  geometry.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  remarkable  one 
is  given  in  the  organic  situation  of  which  consciousness  is  a 
phase. 

3.  The  three  factors  of  the  biological  situation  correspond  to  the 
three  factors  of  the  projection  system. — The  reagent  is  the  pro- 
jectorial referent,  the  environment  is  the  projected  complex,  and 
the  cognitive  field  is  the  projection  field.  The  difficulty  which 
most  of  us  find  in  comprehending  this  is  due  to  two  circumstances : 
first,  to  the  naive  view  of  the  projective  relation,  as  a  throwing  of 
simulacra  on  a  screen ;  and  secondly,  to  the  almost  inevitable  tend- 
ency to  conceive  the  true  projective  relation  as  occurring  within 
tri-dimensional  space,  instead  of  being  a  relation  between  the 
spatio-temporal  order  and  a  higher  one.  The  first  of  these  diffi- 
culties I  have  tried  to  clear  up  in  earlier  passages ;  the  second  will 


454  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

be  at  least  mitigated,  I  trust,  by  the  following  account  of  the  re- 
agent and  its  projection  field. 

(a)  The  reagent  is  distinct  from  (i)  that  to  which  it  responds, 
and  (ii)  its  own  response.  Earlier  in  this  essay  it  was  shown  that 
reactions  of  the  ordinary  kind  cannot  be  adequately  stated  in 
terms  of  their  stimuli  alone,  but  that  there  must  be  assumed  some 
entity  (not  necessarily  psychical)  whose  attitude  or  reference  to 
the  stimuli  defines  the  reactive  relation.  It  is  opportune  now  to 
show  this  same  fact  in  connection  with  consciousness. 

The  difference  between  the  stimulus  pattern  and  that  of  the 
reaction  is  hardly  worth  dilating  upon,  so  evident  is  it.  If  I  see  a 
box  three  feet  long  and  two  feet  deep,  I  do  not  become  a  box  three 
feet  long  and  two  feet  deep.  If  I  hear  that  a  man  fell  dead  in 
Broadway  yesterday,  I  do  not  fall  dead  in  Broadway  yesterday. 
In  short  the  reaction  is  not  a  simple  duplicate  of  the  physical  cir- 
cumstances inducing  it.  It  bears  off  in  its  own  peculiar  direction. 
The  clearest  case  of  this  is  the  time  reaction.  Past  and  present 
stimuli  set  up  reactions  which  are  regulated  by  future  conditions ; 
and  the  tune  pattern  of  the  reactions  contains  future  elements, 
which,  of  course,  are  not  in  the  physical  stimulus  at  all. 

Before  we  attempt  to  explain  how  this  pattern  difference  is 
brought  about,  let  us  observe  the  second  peculiarity,  namely  the 
externality  of  whatever  does  establish  the  before-mentioned  dif- 
ference. Here  again,  I  am  stating  only  a  commonplace  in  language 
stripped  of  presuppositions.  I  refer  to  the  well  known  fact  that 
what  a  man  does,  as  a  result  of  cognizing  some  situation  is  not 
deducible  from  the  internal  structure  of  that  situation  alone ;  and 
still  less  from  the  internal  structure  of  the  resulting  act  alone.  His 
conduct  is  determined  primarily  by  something  which  philosophers 
call  by  various  names,  such  as  'impulse,'  'appetite,'  'vital  force,' 
'psychoid,'  or  'ego.' x 

1  These  last  three  designations  are  so  steeped  in  bad  metaphysics  that  their  use 
leads  almost  inevitably  to  a  misconception  of  the  whole  situation.  I  cite  them  here, 
simply  to  indicate  that  those  thinkers  who  employ  them  are  referring  to  a  real  factor 
in  the  life  process. 


THE  PROJECTIVE  SITUATION  455 

Sound  a  horn  in  the  presence  of  ten  men.  One  hearer  will  clap 
his  hands  to  his  ears  and  cry:  "Stop  that  din !"  A  second  will 
fall  into  a  revery  of  pleasant  melancholy.  A  third  will  dance.  A 
fourth  will  stand  at  attention,  like  a  soldier.  Now,  these  differ- 
ent behaviors  are  not  deductions  from  that  which  is  cognized. 
They  are  chiefly  attitudes  toward  it.  The  attitude  may  be  taken, 
for  aught  I  know,  by  some  group  of  cortical  cells,  or  by  the  blood, 
or  by  a  blithesome  archangel ;  but  it  is  taken,  and  both  the  agent 
and  the  act  are  not  parts  of  the  situation  toward  which  the  atti- 
tude is  taken.  Likewise  of  the  ensuing  conduct.  In  the  mere 
sound  of  a  horn  there  is  no  potentiality  of  clapping  a  pair  of  hands 
to  one's  ears,  nor  of  revery,  nor  of  dancing,  nor  of  unconscious- 
ness. Nor  do  these  powers  lurk  in  the  consciousness  of  the  sound. 
To  adopt  the  overworked  and  inadequate  phrase  of  the  biologist, 
they  are  all  activities  which  the  cognized  sound  releases,  as  the  drop 
of  a  trigger  releases  the  explosive  forces  of  gunpowder.  More 
precisely,  the  cognized  sound  is  the  critical  element  in  a  process 
involving  much  more  than  the  element  and  specifically  determined, 
though  not  incited,  by  other  factors  than  that  element. 

(6)  The  relations  to  which  the  reagent  responds  through  the 
help  of  consciousness  are  relations  among  spatio-temporal  entities, 
but  they  are  not  spatio-temporal  relations,  in  the  strict  adjectival 
sense.  That  is,  they  are  not  distances  nor  directions  nor  magni- 
tudes nor  durations.  These  latter  and  other  similar  kinds  are, 
in  the  cognitive  field,  terms  among  which  relations  of  wholly 
different  orders  obtain.  What  these  specifically  cognitive  rela- 
tions are  is  a  question  too  extensive  for  the  pages  alloted  me ;  but 
I  should  like  to  say  at  least  that  Woodbridge  has  long  since  pointed 
out  the  most  important  class,  namely,  implications.  These  cer- 
tainly are  not  spatio-temporal  relations,  in  the  proper  sense  of 
being  developed  or  present  as  efficiences  in  physical  and  chemical 
processes ;  and  yet  they  are  not  created  by  being  known,  they  are 
not  mental  devices,  but  real  relations  between  real  entities.  Or,  to 
put  it  in  a  phrasing  that  escapes  the  suspicion  of  subjectivism: 
the  stimuli,  as  physico-chemical  processes,  are  really  implicated 


456  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

with  many  other  events  (entities)  in  the  universe,  but  this  implica- 
tion is  not  present  within  the  chemisms  any  more  than  the  direction 
or  distance  of  a  point  from  another  is  present  within  the  point.  The 
implication  is  a  relation  between  entities,  not  internal  to  any  one 
entity;  hence  the  relation  appears  only  when  the  complex  of  in- 
volved entities  does,  just  as  linearity,  straightness,  curvature,  etc., 
appear  only  when  a  complex  of  points  does. 

What,  now,  is  the  complex  in  which  implicative  relations  appear  ? 
The  answer  to  this  question  designates  the  unique  status  of  con- 
sciousness in  the  world.  The  complex  embraces  the  entire  physi- 
cal universe,  past,  present,  and  future,  together  with  all  types  of 
relations. 

(c)  The  reagent  is  so  related  to  the  projection  field  and  to  the  pro- 
jected complex,  that,  in  some  dimensions,  the  projection  field  lies  be- 
tween it  and  the  projected  complex.  This  is  only  an  exact  way  of 
stating  that  our  organic  adjustment  to  physical  things  is  'through' 
the  field  of  consciousness. 

The  projection  field,  or  the  'field  of  consciousness/  is,  in  the 
strict  logical  sense  of  the  adjective,  transverse  to  the  objects  pro- 
jected upon  it.  Transverse  means  different  with  respect  to  a  given 
dimension.  This  is  precisely  the  relation  of  the  cognitive  field 
with  respect  to  the  elements  in  it.  The  latter  are  spatio-temporal, 
but  the  relations  between  them  in  the  cognitive  field  are  not  spatio- 
temporal.  None  of  them  can  be  reduced  to  length,  breadth,  thick- 
ness, duration,  or  to  any  complex  of  these.  For  the  very  same 
reason,  then,  that  length  is  a  dimension  different  from  breadth, 
a  cognitive  relation  is  of  a  dimension  different  from  any  spatio- 
temporal  one.  And  the  field  of  cognitive  relations  is  in  that  differ- 
ent dimension.  It  is  transverse  to  the  four  spatio-temporal 
dimensions  and  is  therefore  of  the  (4  +  a)th  order.  If  we  agree 
to  define  the  physical  world  as  the  spatio-temporal  system  exclu- 
sively, then  consciousness  is  not  physical.1  But  this  does  not  imply 

1  It  may  be  well  to  add  that  I  should  reject  this  definition.  I  do  not  see  any 
strong  evidence  for  supposing  that  physical  entities  are  mere  complexes  of  extension 
and  duration. 


THE  PROJECTIVE  SITUATION  457 

that  the  objects  of  consciousness  are  not  physical.  Nor  does  it 
even  imply  that  cognitive  relations  are  not  relations  between 
physical  things. 

The  broader  features  of  the  whole  process  may  now  be  summar- 
ized :  Consciousness  enables  the  organism  to  adjust  itself  in  various 
manners  to  entities  external  to  it  in  space  and  in  time  at  the  moment 
of  the  specific  conscious  state.  I  do  not  say  that  consciousness 
consists  in  the  specific  adjustment;  this  is  predominantly  impulse 
and  motor  performances.  But  consciousness  is  the  crucial  ad- 
vance toward  this  adjustment.  It  makes  possible  my  regulating 
my  behavior,  here  and  now,  to  physical  objects  which  have  ceased 
to  exist,  to  others  which  have  not  yet  come  into  existence,  and  to 
existent  objects  which  are  not  affecting  me  in  space  at  the  present 
instant.  An  incidental  feature  of  this  capacity  is  the  cognizing 
of  purely  imaginary  and  impossible  objects  and  of  behaving  toward 
them.  Sometimes  I  take  them  seriously,  and  then,  so  far  as  their 
immediate  efficiency  is  a  criterion,  they  are  just  as  real  as  physical 
things;  and  I  am  victimized  by  my  own  consciousness.  But 
usually  I  am  only  curious  about  them,  or  I  laugh  at  them,  as  I  do 
at  the  Walrus  and  the  Carpenter. 

What  must  be  involved  in  this  procedure  ?  Note  first  that  the 
environment  which  enters  the  cognitive  field  is  four-dimensional. 
The  organism  which  adjusts  to  it  variously  is  also  four-dimen- 
sional. I  am  genuinely  conscious  of  all  three  dimensions  of  space, 
and  also  of  time ;  no  one  of  these  dimensions  goes  lost  in  entering 
the  cognitive  field.  And  I  react  in  these  four  dimensions  too; 
my  muscles  not  only  move  in  the  three  dimensions  of  space,  but 
they  defer  or  accelerate  their  motions  in  time.  The  transition 
from  the  cognized  complex  to  adjustment  involves  a  projection 
of  the  former  upon  a  field  of  the  (4  +  a)th  order.  The  specific 
relations  within  the  projection  are  functions  of  the  characters  of 
the  four-dimensional  complex  that  is  projected.  But,  although 
they  are  functions  of  these,  the  specific  relations  within  the  projec- 
tion are  of  a  different  order.  Precisely  the  same  holds  of  the  pro- 
section  characters  and  the  organic  adjustments  they  induce. 


458  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

In  less  exact  language  the  function  of  consciousness,  when 
viewed  with  respect  to  its  direction,  is  to  make  efficient  in  the  four- 
dimensional  organism  those  types  of  relations  which  are  peculiar 
to  fields  of  the  (4  +  a)th  order. 

Or  again,  in  language  grievously  tainted  with  old  philosophical 
errors,  consciousness  is  that  efficiency  whereby  we  regulate  our 
conduct  according  to  principles  which  are  'above'  space  and  time. 
This  way  of  stating  the  case  is  not  illuminating,  in  spite  of  its 
familiarity.  It  leads  us  into  all  the  stock  puzzles  of  epistemology, 
just  because  it  describes  only  the  result  of  consciousness  and  not 
the  specific  relation  of  the  involved  factors  to  one  another.  It  is 
therefore  to  be  discarded  in  favor  of  the  less  simple  but  more 
descriptive  account  above  given  in  outline. 

4.  If  the  biological  situation  constitutes  a  projection  complex, 
as  has  been  maintained,  then  all  those  events  which,  in  psychology, 
are  called  illusions  and  errors  are  not  products  of  consciousness,  but 
they  are  peculiar  and  inevitable  characteristics  of  the  whole  pro- 
jection system.  They  stand  in  the  same  relation  to  the  'total 
situation'  that  a  projected  point  does  to  a  purely  geometrical 
projection  system.  Space  does  not  permit  an  adequate  exposi- 
tion of  this  matter  here ;  but  I  cannot  dismiss  it  without  a  brief 
statement.  For,  as  Holt  and  Montague  have  shown,  the  crucial 
problem  for  the  new  realism,  as  for  every  other  theory  of  cogni- 
tion, is  the  problem  of  error  (in  all  forms) .  And  the  acutest  critics 
of  the  new  realism  urge  that  its  fatal  flaw  is  its  acceptance  of  the 
full  'objective'  nature  of  illusions  and  error  and  its  simultaneous 
refusal  to  put  illusory  objects,  together  with  all  their  colors,  shapes, 
and  behaviors,  identically  in  the  very  space  and  time  in  which 
they  immediately  appear.  If  the  charge  is  true,  it  is  deadly.  But 
I  believe  it  owes  its  strength  wholly  to  a  misunderstanding  of  the 
relational  character  of  the  "organic  situation"  in  which  conscious- 
ness develops,  and  of  the  entities  which  enter  into  that  situation. 
This  situation  contains  a  host  of  entities  which  are  protectively  indis- 
cernible and  which  therefore  must  possess,  in  any  given  projection 
field,  multiple  values.  These  entities  are  not  merely  construed 


PROJECTIVE  INDISCERNIBLES  459 

erroneously ;  they  are  genuinely  indeterminate  with  reference  to 
our  spatio-temporal  systems  of  which  they  are  true  parts  or 
phases. 

In  any  projective  system,  any  given  project-complex  is  the  pro- 
jection of  an  infinite  number  of  real  or  merely  possible  projected 
complexes.  Thus,  if  from  the  point  S  the  lines  SP,  SQ,  and  SR  be 
drawn  cutting  another  line  in  A',  B',  and  C" ;  then  A'  is  the  projec- 
tion of  each  point  in  the  line  SP,  B'  of  each  in  SQ,  C'  of  each  in  SR, 
Given  only  S  and  the  projection  plane  and  the  values  A',  B',  C", 
therefore,  each  of  the  latter  is  the  true  projection  of  an  indefinite 
system  of  genuine  indiscernibles  and  has  therefore  multiple  value. 

In  order  to  determine  which  the  real  projected  complex  is  at  a 
given  instant,  we  must  test  it  with  other  systems  of  points, 
M ,  N,  0,  which  must  be  varied,  while  S,  the  projection  plane  and 
A',  B',  C",  are  constant.  If,  then,  A',  B',  C',  does  not  vary  with 
variations  of  M,  N,  0,  the  latter  complex  is  not  the  real  projected 
one.  And  so  on.  Please  note  that  this  elimination  involves  a 
series  of  operations,  much  more  than  mere  projecting.  It  in- 
cludes a  directive  activity,  comparison  of  project  complexes,  and 
selection  among  these. 

These  projective  indiscernibles  are  precisely  the  relations  which 
we  find,  much  more  complicated,  in  the  much  higher  order  of  pro- 
jection on  the  cognitive  field.  Substitute  for  points  enormously 
intricate  entities  of  the  fourth  order  or  higher.  Substitute  for 
the  projection  plane  a  field  of  unknown  higher  order.  Substitute 
for  S  a  projectorial  referent  which,  instead  of  being  of  zero  dimen- 
sionality, may  be  of  a  high  order.  And  you  then  have  (i)  a  center 
to  which  a  distant  complex  is  related ;  (ii)  this  relation  a  function 
of  space  and  time  and  perhaps  other  dimensions;  (Hi)  and  the 
projective  relations  among  the  projects  transverse  to  the  dimen- 
sions in  which  the  projected  complex  is  related  to  the  organic  cen- 
ter. For  example :  When  I  think  that  yesterday's  sunset  means 
rain  this  afternoon,  I  am  external  to  the  sunset  and  the  rain  in 
space  and  in  time ;  my  relation  to  them  is  a  function  of  space  and 
time  (and  probably  more  variables),  but  what  I  think  about  the 


460  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

sunset  is  not,  in  itself,  a  complex  of  spatio-temporal  relations,  but 
rather  a  complex  of  suggestions,  implications,  discriminations,  and 
the  like,  some  of  whose  terms  may  be  spatio-temporal,  however. 

Now  is  it  not  a  familiar  experience  that  (i)  no  single  complex  in 
the  cognitive  field  ever  has  a  term  that  is  not  of  multiple  value,  and 
(ii)  conversely,  with  reference  to  a  single  cognitive  situation,  there 
is  an  indefinite  number  of  projective  indiscernibles  for  each  project 
element  ?  Thus  :  a  perceived  line,  at  a  given  single  instant,  suggests 
or  implies  a  line  of  the  length  m  at  the  distance  n  and  in  the  direc- 
tion a;  but,  so  long  as  no  other  cognitive  situation  is  introduced  and 
the  behavior  of  the  percept  in  the  new  situation  is  not  compared 
with  its  behavior  in  the  former,  the  implied  line  may  not  be  the 
one  which  is  actually  projected  at  the  instant.  A  longer  line  at  a 
greater  distance  may  be  perceived,  and  in  perception  may  be  at 
the  instant  genuinely  identical  with  the  implied  line ;  which  is  to 
say  merely  what  everybody  knows  directly,  viz.  that  many  things 
different  in  other  contexts  are  identical  in  one  perception,  i.e.  are 
there  indiscernibles,  having  all  one  perceptual  projection,  pre- 
cisely as  all  the  points  in  the  line  SP  have  one  common  projection 
in  the  given  plane,  under  the  given  circumstances. 

And  is  it  not  also  a  matter  of  common  observation  that  the  same 
holds  of  concepts,  no  less  than  of  percepts  ?  It  is  not  an  accidental 
feature  of  visual  space,  but  is  involved  wherever  a  purely  projec- 
tive (non-metrical)  relation  is.  Thus,  the  specific,  momentary 
'idea'  I  entertain  is  the  projection  of  an  indesignate  multitude 
of  entities  each  one  of  which  implies  and  is  implied  by  the  very 
same  other  entities  when  projected  into  the  particular  cognitive 
field.  I  think,  in  a  given  cognitive  situation,  of  'a  brown  mare 
that  is  gentle  and  saddle-broken.'  The  specific  connotation  of 
this  complex  term  is  set  by  me ;  I,  the  organism,  select  a  definite 
project  complex,  embodying  definite  implicative,  discriminatory 
relations  (such  as:  'a  horse  which  my  boys  can  ride,'  'a  horse 
that  is  not  afraid  of  trolley  cars,'  etc.).  Now,  what  of  the  extra- 
cognitive  complexes,  of  which  this  may  be  the  projection?  They 
are  indefinitely  numerous,  and  there  is  in  the  projection  itself  abso- 


HALLUCINATIONS  461 

lutely  no  indication  limiting  their  number.  They  are,  with  refer- 
ence to  my  'idea,'  projective  indiscernibles. 

5.  The  alleged  mental  character  of  hallucinatory  objects.  To  phi- 
losopher and  ordinary  man  alike,  these  entities  have  always  been 
stumbling  blocks  in  the  way  to  radical  realism.  And  realists  have 
done  little  to  remove  them,  prior  to  the  recent  courageous  analyses 
of  Alexander  and  Nunn.  The  position  these  investigators  are  now 
defending  is,  I  believe,  fundamentally  correct;  and  when  people 
thoroughly  understand  it,  they  will  wonder  why  everybody  hadn't 
discovered  it  centuries  ago.  They  are  far  from  understanding  it, 
though.  Even  such  an  acute  reader  as  Lovejoy  finds  in  it  only  a 
subtle  flouting  of  the  unchallengeable  facts.  For  this  two  circum- 
stances are  responsible :  the  first  is  that  the  naive  realist's  difficulty 
here  is  traceable  to  his  presuppositions,  and  of  these  he  is  not 
clearly  aware;  the  second  is  that  Alexander  and  Nunn  have  thus 
far  given  us  no  explanation,  no  description  of  the  structure  of  a 
universe  in  which  hallucinatory  objects  can  arise,  and  so  their 
hypothesis  seems  to  be  a  mere  '  blanket.'  To  made  this  appear- 
ance all  the  worse,  they  treat  only  the  stuff  of  hallucinatory  ob- 
jects as  real,  leaving  the  erroneous  meanings  more  or  less  products 
of  a  construing  mind.  This  is  all  too  perilously  like  old-fashioned 
dualism,  to  please  any  realist.  It  must  be  displaced  by  an  inter- 
pretation which  makes  equivocal  values  and '  misconstructions '  of  every 
sort  no  less  independent  of  cognition  than  true  propositions  are. 
Now,  the  first  step  in  this  direction  is  the  clearing  up  of  the  two 
circumstances  I  have  alluded  to.  This  I  shall  endeavor  to  do  by 
scrutinizing  the  common-sense  verdict  about  hallucinations  and 
its  underlying  presuppositions.  Lovejoy  has  admirably  summa- 
rized that  verdict  as  follows: 

"Spatial  objects  may  at  least  in  some  cases  really  exist 
in  some  realm  or  medium  other  than  that  of  real  space.  Such  a 
realm  or  medium,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  is  precisely  what  people  ordi- 
narily mean  by  'consciousness' ;  and  the  kind  of  object  that  has 
its  subsistence  therein  is  what  they  ordinarily  mean  by  an  'image' 
or  'representation.'  But  the  existence  of  an  object  in  this  me- 


462  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

dium  evidently  is  not  properly  describable  as  the  momentary  en- 
trance of  a  real  and  perduring  spatial  thing  into  a  new  relation 
with  other  things ;  for  in  the  case  of  the  hallucination  the  particu- 
lar thing  that  is  'in  consciousness'  does  not  perdure  and  does  not, 
though  perceived  as  spatial,  exist  in  the  same  real  space  in  which 
other  objects  are  still  —  by  the  new  realist  and  by  common  sense 
—  supposed  to  exist."  l 

Lovejoy  here  defends  a  view  which  is  inevitable  so  long  as  the 
cognitive  situation  is  not  viewed  as  the  projective  field  of  a  projec- 
tion system.  From  this  new  standpoint,  however,  his  opinion  is 
seen  to  be  based  on  the  two  following  implicit  fallacies  : 

1.  "The  entity  A  enters  a  new  relation  r  ;  therefore  every  char- 
acter of  A  enters  this  same  relation  identically."  This  is  the 
necessary  presupposition  of  the  statement  that  the  hallucinatory 
object  cannot  be  the  real  object  entering  into  new  relations  be- 
cause the  former  does  not  possess  all  the  characters  of  the  latter. 
For,  clearly,  if  only  a  single  feature  of  a  thing  could  enter  into  a 
given  relation,  and  if  the  thing,  in  that  relation,  could  manifest  only 
one  of  its  properties,  then  there  would  be  ground  for  Lovejoy's 
inference. 

Now,  how  about  the  presupposition  ?  Can  it  be  defended  ?  I 
do  not  see  how,  for  it  is  an  extreme  variety  of  our  old  enemy,  the 
internal  relation  theory.  Virtually  it  identifies  the  thing-in-rela- 
tion  with  the  thing-in-itself .  It  alleges  that  all  the  qualities  and 
relations  of  a  thing  are  so  tightly  knit  together 'organically'  (in 
the  metaphysical,  unbiological  sense,  of  course)  that  all  of  them 
must  equally  share  in  each  new  relation  into  which  the  thing  en- 
ters. If  some  of  them  do  not,  then  the  '  real '  thing  is  not  in  the 
given  relation ;  there  is  an  'appearance,' a  'mental  state'  in  its 
stead.  The  instant  you  test  such  a  hypothesis,  however,  its  im- 
possibility becomes  visible.  It  means  that  a  bay  horse  cannot 
be  physically  related  to  the  camera  which  photographs  him  be- 
cause the  animal,  in  relation  to  the  camera,  is  only  a  few  inches 

1  Lovejoy,  Reflections  of  a  Temporalist  on  the  New  Realism,  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol., 
etc.,  8,  596. 


HALLUCINATIONS  463 

long,  shows  only  one  eye,  is  only  gray,  etc.  Or  if  an  object  enters 
a  magnetic  field,  all  its  qualities  must  be  in  the  magnetic  relation, 
hence,  its  color,  flavor,  shape,  weight,  texture,  market  value,  and 
a  thousand  other  features  are  all  magnetized.  If  the  physicist  can- 
not find  them  in  this  relation,  by  the  aid  of  delicate  registering 
instruments,  the  thing  itself  is  not  there.1 

2.  "A  hallucinatory  complex  does  not  exist  at  that  place  in 
space  where  it  appeal's  to  exist ;  therefore  it  does  not  exist  in  real 
space  anywhere."  This  fallacy  is  based  upon  the  unnoticed  pre- 
supposition that  consciousness  is  the  mere  knowing  of  physical 
things,  as  these  are  'in  themselves.'  Of  course,  if  one  clings  to 
this  naive  doctrine,  the  fact  of  error  and  hallucination  leads  irre- 
sistibly to  a  dualism.  But  once  regard  both  the  physical  things 
and  their  cognized  phases  as  relational  complexes,  and  the  whole 
perplexity  vanishes,  simply  by  your  recognizing  that  the  character 
of  a  space  complex,  such  as  a  man  seen  in  a  hallucination,  is  physi- 
cally determined  by  its  relations  to  many  other  entities.  In  this 
respect,  space  characters  do  not  differ  at  all  from  color  characters. 

A  hillside  which  is  green  near  at  hand,  under  a  certain  light,  is 
bluish  green  a  little  farther  off,  bluish  gray  at  a  greater  distance,  and 
blue  from  a  still  remoter  vantage  point.  That  these  are  its  real 
physical  colors  the  spectroscope  proves.  From  this  fact,  we  readily 
infer  to-day  that  color  is  not  a  mysterious  essence  inside  of  the  hill, 
but  a  character  which  is  a  function  of  many  things,  ether,  air,  angles, 
distances,  etc.  Now  is  it  not  obvious  that  a  character  which  is 
constituted  by  such  a  complex  cannot  be  located  in  any  one  part  of 
that  complex  exclusively?  You  might  as  well  try  to  put  the  cir- 
cularity of  a  circle  into  one  of  the  points  of  the  circumference.  Of 
course,  what  you  can  do  is  to  discern  in  the  relation  of  such  a  point 
to  other  points  a  peculiarity  which,  given  a  sufficient  linear 
continuum,  will  constitute  a  circumference.  And  this  is  the  very 
thing  you  must  do  with  the  color  of  the  distant  hill.  Color  is 

1  This  fallacy  underlies  Bergson's  theory  of  cognition,  in  which  he  maintains  that 
knowledge  never  gives  us  '  the  real  thing '  inasmuch  as  it  gives  us  only  a  few  of 
its  selected  characters. 


464  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

not  in  a  point,  as  though  it  were  an  'essence'  whose  'appearances' 
emanated  therefrom.  Color  is  a  character  of  a  considerable  ex- 
tent of  ether  which  is  disturbed  in  a  certain  manner.  Like  all 
other  physical  characters,  it  varies  with  the  number,  arrangement, 
and  character  of  ether  units  and  other  things;  and,  in  the  sense 
which  Perry  has  defined  the  term  'dependence,'  the  color  depends 
upon  the  total  complex  either  as  an  effect  upon  its  exclusive  cause 
or  as  the  whole  upon  its  own  parts.  Some  reasonably  naive  people 
can  grasp  this  and  assent  to  it.  But  the  old  essence-substance 
notion  troubles  them  when  they  try  to  think  in  the  same  manner 
of  space  characters.  How  about  the  size  and  shape  of  the  hill  ? 
Is  it  not  many  thousand  times  as  big  as  a  man  ?  And  shaped  like 
a  sugar  loaf?  And  at  just  one  place  in  the  universe,  at  a  given 
instant  ?  I  grant  that  one  must  be  quite  sophisticated  to  answer 
these  queries  in  a  thoroughly  relationalistic  manner.  We  have  all 
become  so  accustomed  to  construe  space  in  terms  of  measure  that 
every  other  interpretation  of  it  sounds  absurd.  Our  practical 
dealings  with  space  are  all  metrical,  of  course.  The  important 
questions  of  daily  life  are :  How  far  ?  How  near  ?  How  much  to 
the  right?  How  many  degrees  to  the  left?  And  they  are  an- 
swered largely  by  our  muscles,  which  carry  our  limbs  across  the 
appropriate  stretches.  Now,  there  is  no  denying  that  one  posi- 
tion and  only  one  lies  at  a  given  distance  and  direction  from  another 
position.  Hence,  if  the  relation  between  the  two  positions  were 
exclusively  that  of  distance  and  direction,  in  the  proper  quantita- 
tive sense,  we  should  have  to  agree  with  the  popular  view  that  an 
object  which  'seems'  to  occupy  a  position  which  is  not  its  'real' 
one,  in  terms  of  measure,  is  'not  really'  the  latter  object  at  all,  but 
only  a  phantasm  of  the  brain.  That  this  opinion  has  prevailed 
among  philosophers  no  less  than  among  laymen  is  due  to  a  mere 
motor  instinct, .  coupled  with  ignorance  of  modern  geometry  and 
the  profounder  types  of  space  relations. 

As  soon  as  we  construe  elements  in  the  cognitive  field  as  a  pro- 
ject-complex, we  detect  the  error  in  the  inference  that,  because 
a  space  object  that  is  cognized  has  not  the  same  metrical  values  as 


REAL  INDISCERNIBLES  465 

the  object  which  it  purports  to  be,  therefore  it  is  (a)  not  in  real 
space  and  (6)  not  the  real  object.  The  fallacy  rests  upon  the  pre- 
supposition that  two  entities  which  are  indiscernibles  in  one  rela- 
tion and  discernibles  in  another  cannot  both  fall  within  the  con- 
tinuum to  which  one  of  them  indisputably  belongs.  That  this 
is  false  may  be  proved,  not  only  by  formal  logic,  but  still  more 
convincingly  by  an  appeal  to  a  concrete  case  in  which  it  does  not 
hold.  By  formal  logic  :  A  is  a  member  of  the  class  M,  and  in  this 
relation  (alone)  it  is  indistinguishable  from  B,  which  is  also  a  mem- 
ber of  M ;  now,  if  A  is  distinguishable  f roin  B  in  some  other  rela- 
tion than  that  of  membership  in  M,  we  cannot  infer  that  A  is  not 
(a)  a  member  of  M  nor  (6)  a  part  of  B,  in  case  B  is  a  complex. 
Such  an  inference  would  be  the  ordinary  fallacy  of  accident.  This 
can  be  shown  concretely  in  projective  geometry.  Here  all  pairs 
of  points  on  a  given  line  are  indistinguishable  in  themselves;  that  is, 
so  long  as  other  points  and  lines  are  not  determinately  given  and 
certain  operations  performed.  In  other  words,  their  distances 
are  indiscernible,  hence  the  'absolute  locus'  of  each  point.  But 
from  this  fact,  does  the  geometer  infer  that  the  point  A  of  the  line 
M  cannot  be  'really'  in  M,  because  A  is  projectively  indistinguish- 
able from  B,  of  the  line  M  ?  Or  that  A  is  a  member  of  some  other 
class  N?  Not  at  all.  He  admits  the  obvious,  namely,  that  en- 
tities in  certain  relations  are  real  indiscernibles,  and  that  their  iden- 
tity in  such  complexes  as  are  determined  only  by  those  relations  is 
just  as  genuine  as  their  differences  in  complexes  otherwise  determined. 
Were  the  philosopher  to  be  no  less  scrupulous,  he  must  say  that 
optical  and  other  sensory  illusions,  hallucinations,  and  delusions 
are  not  entities  in  some  other  continuum  than  that  in  which  they 
exist  '  immediately,'  but  rather  entities  so  related  to  others  in  that 
continuum  that  they  are,  in  that  particular  relation,  identical  in 
quality,  efficiency,  and  every  other  respect.  Thus,  there  is  a 
class  of  complex  entities  in  space  and  time  so  related  hi  one  respect 
(which  I  should  like  to  call  a  'direction,'  but  for  the  narrow  mean- 
ing popularly  read  into  the  term)  that  the  complex  of  members  A, 
B,  C,  .  .  .  is  identical  with  the  complex  of  members  M,  N,  0,  .  .  . 

2H 


466  IMPLICATIONS  OF  BIOLOGY 

The  former  complex  is,  when  described  in  its  other,  more  inclusive 
relations,  a  stone  wall  in  a  given  place ;  the  second  complex  is  a 
man  who,  at  the  given  moment,  is  eating  his  breakfast  a  hundred 
miles  away  from  the  stone  wall.  I,  having  a  hallucination,  see  the 
man  where  the  stone  wall  'really'  is;  but  this  fact  does  not  prove 
that  either  the  man  or  the  wall  is  not  in  real  space :  it  is  only  an 
illustration  of  the  fact  that  two  spatial  things  may  be  protectively 
related  in  a  cognitive  field  not  less  than  in  a  field  of  lower  order, 
so  that  they  are  there  identical  (indiscernible). 

6.  Conclusion.  —  Here  our  formal  analysis  of  the  biological  situa- 
tion must  halt,  for  lack  of  space  in  which  to  describe  the  other  fac- 
tors, such  as  the  cognizing  reagent,  the  motor  response  to  relations 
in  the  cognitive  field,  and  the  mechanism  by  which  this  response 
is  effected.  Short  as  our  journey  has  been,  though,  we  have  come 
upon  not  a  few  important  facts.  The  realistic  implications  of 
ordinary  biological  description  clear  up,  in  large  measure,  the 
problem  of  error,  which  is  the  central  issue  in  every  theory  of  con- 
sciousness. Practically  every  argument  for  a  separate  realm  of 
consciousness  or  spirit  rests  its  case  ultimately  upon  the  appar- 
ently certain  fact  that  many  things  '  in '  the  mind  do  not  exist  in 
the  external  world,  although  they  do  seem  to.  This  indiscernibil- 
ity  of  seeming  from  being,  in  the  field  of  immediate  experience, 
has  almost  invariably  been  construed  as  proving  that,  in  immedi- 
ate experience,  it  is  not  the  'things  in  themselves'  we  are  dealing 
with,  but  entities  of  some  other  and  unique  order.  Now,  we  have 
seen  that  (a)  the  indiscernibility  of  seeming  from  being  can  be 
naturally  attributed  not  to  the  terms  but  to  the  relation  in  which 
they  stand;  and  (6)  this  relation  is  of  a  genus  familiar  to  the 
modern  geometer ;  and  (c)  exists  in  the  space  order ;  and  (d)  is  not 
confined  to  space  but  is  common  to  'forms  of  externality'  or  dimen- 
sional structures. 

From  these  facts  the  biologist  is  free  to  draw  an  inference  which 
has  extremely  high  probability,  namely,  that  organisms  have 
developed  elaborate  projection  systems  in  the  central  nervous 
systems  just  because  the  physical  world-order  is  so  full  of  charac- 


ERROR  467 

ters  which,  with  reference  to  the  position  occupied  by  a  given  or- 
ganism at  any  given  instant,  are  indiscernibles  and  yet,  in  other 
relations,  are  different  from  one  another.  At  each  moment  a 
factor  of  the  environment  must  be  given  in  several  projections,  or 
(what  amounts  to  the  same  thing)  a  sufficient  number  of  distinct 
elements  must  be  given,  to  make  the  character  as  a  whole  dis- 
cernible. This  conjecture,  which  we  cannot  here  set  forth  in  de- 
tail, leaves  us  with  a  view  of  error  exactly  opposite  to  that  tradi- 
tionally championed.  Error  is  not  a  product  of  the  nervous  system, 
but  the  nervous  system  is  a  contrivance  to  deal  with  a  physical  state 
of  affairs  of  which  error  is  only  a  very  intricate  instance. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

THE  PROGRAM  AND  FIRST  PLATFORM  OF  SIX  REALISTS1 

PHILOSOPHY  is  famous  for  its  disagreements,  which  have  contrib- 
uted not  a  little  towards  bringing  it  into  disrepute  as  being  unscientific, 
subjective,  or  temperamental.  These  disagreements  are  due  in  part, 
no  doubt,  to  the  subject  matter  of  philosophy,  but  chiefly  to  the  lack  of 
precision  and  uniformity  in  the  use  of  words  and  to  the  lack  of  deliberate 
cooperation  in  research.  In  having  these  failings  philosophy  still  differs 
widely  from  such  sciences  as  physics  and  chemistry.  They  tend  to  make 
it  seem  mere  opinion ;  for  through  the  appearance  of  many  figurative  or 
loose  expressions  in  the  writings  of  isolated  theorists,  the  impression  is 
given  that  philosophical  problems  and  their  solutions  are  essentially  per- 
sonal. This  impression  is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  philosophy  con- 
cerns itself  with  emotions,  temperaments,  and  taste.  A  conspicuous 
result  of  this  lack  of  cooperation,  common  terminology,  and  a  working 
agreement  as  to  fundamental  presuppositions  is  that  genuine  philo- 
sophical problems  have  been  obscured,  and  real  philosophical  progress 
has  been  seriously  hindered. 

It  is  therefore  with  the  hope  that  by  cooperation  genuine  problems 
will  be  revealed,  philosophical  thought  will  be  clarified,  and  a  way  opened 
for  real  progress,  that  the  undersigned  have  come  together,  deliberated, 
and  endeavored  to  reach  an  agreement.  Such  cooperation  has  three 
fairly  distinct,  though  not  necessarily  successive  stages:  first,  it  seeks 
a  statement  of  fundamental  principles  and  doctrines;  secondly,  it  aims 
at  a  program  of  constructive  work  following  a  method  founded  on  these 
principles  and  doctrines ;  finally,  it  endeavors  to  obtain  a  system  of  axioms, 
methods,  hypotheses,  and  facts,  which  have  been  so  arrived  at  and  formu- 
lated that  at  least  those  investigators  who  have  cooperated  can  accept 
them  as  a  whole. 

After  several  conferences  the  undersigned  have  found  that  they  hold 
certain  doctrines  in  common.  Some  of  these  doctrines,  which  constitute 
a  realistic  platform,  they  herewith  publish  in  the  hope  of  carrying  out 

1  Reprinted  from  the  /.  of  Phil.,  Psychol,  etc.,  1910,  7,  393. 
471 


472  APPENDIX 

further  the  program  stated  above.  Each  list  has  a  different  author,  but 
has  been  discussed  at  length,  revised,  and  agreed  to  by  the  other  conferees. 
The  six  lists,  therefore,  though  differently  formulated,  are  held  to  repre- 
sent the  same  doctrines. 

By  conferring  on  other  topics,  by  interchange  of  ideas,  and  by  sys- 
tematic criticism  of  one  another's  phraseology,  methods,  and  hypotheses, 
we  hope  to  develop  a  common  technique,  a  common  terminology,  and  so 
finally  a  common  doctrine  which  will  enjoy  some  measure  of  that  author- 
ity which  the  natural  sciences  possess.  We  shall  have  accomplished  one 
of  our  purposes  if  our  publications  tempt  other  philosophers  to  form  small 
cooperative  groups  with  similar  aims. 

EDWIN  B.  HOLT,  Harvard  University. 
WALTER  T.  MARVIN,  Rutgers  College. 
W.  P.  MONTAGUE,  Columbia  University. 
RALPH  BARTON  PERRY,  Harvard  University. 
WALTER  B.  PITKIN,  Columbia  University. 
E.  G.  SPAULDING,  Princeton  University. 


1.  The  entities  (objects,  facts,  etc.)  under  study  in  logic,  mathematics, 
and  the  physical  sciences  are  not  mental  in  any  usual  or  proper  meaning 
of  the  word  'mental.' 

2.  The  being  and  nature  of  these  entities  are  in  no  sense  conditioned  by 
their  being  known. 

3.  The  degree  of  unity,  consistency,  or  connection  subsisting  among 
entities  is  a  matter  to  be  empirically  ascertained. 

4.  In  the  present  stage  of  our  knowledge  there  is  a  presumption  in  favor 
of  pluralism. 

5.  An  entity  subsisting  in  certain  relations  to  other  entities  enters  into 
new  relations  without  necessarily  negating  or  altering  its  already  sub- 
sisting relations. 

6.  No  self-consistent  or  satisfactory  logic  (or  system  of  logic)  so  far 
invented  countenances  the  'organic'  theory  of  knowledge  or  the  'inter- 
nal' view  of  relations. 

7.  Those  who  assert  this  (anti-realistic)  view,  use  in  their  exposition 

a  logic  which  is  inconsistent  with  their  doctrine. 

EDWIN  B.  HOLT. 


PROGRAM  AND  FIRST  PLATFORM  473 

II 

1.  Epistemology  is  not  logically  fundamental.1 

2.  There  are  many  existential,  as  well  as  non-existential,  propositions 
which  are  logically  prior  to  epistemology.2 

3.  There  are  certain  principles  of  logic  which  are  logically  prior  to  all 
scientific  and  metaphysical  systems. 

One  of  these  is  that  which  is  usually  called  the  external  view  of  relations. 

4.  This  view  may  be  stated  thus :  In  the  proposition,  "the  term  a  is  in 
the  relation  R  to  the  term  b,"  aR  in  no  degree  constitutes  b,  nor  does  Rb 
constitute  a,  nor  does  R  constitute  either  a  or  6. 

5.  It  is  possible  to  add  new  propositions  to  some  bodies  of  information 
without  thereby  requiring  any  modification  of  those  bodies  of  information. 

6.  There  are  no  propositions  which  are  (accurately  speaking)  partly 
true  and  partly  false,  for  all  such  instances  can  be  logically  analyzed  into 
at  least  two  propositions  one  of  which  is  true  and  the  other  false.     Thus 
as  knowledge  advances  only  two  modifications  of  any  proposition  of  the 
older  knowledge  are  logically  possible ;  it  can  be  rejected  as  false  or  it  can 
be  analyzed  into  at  least  two  propositions  one  of  which  is  rejected. 

1  Some  of  the  principles  of  logic  are  logically  prior  to  any  proposition  that  is  de- 
duced from  other  propositions.     The  theories  of  the  nature  of  knowledge  and  of  the 
relation  of  knowledge  to  its  object  are  for  this  reason  logically  subsequent  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  logic.     In  short,  logic  is  logically  prior  to  any  epistemological  theory. 
Again,  as  theories  of  reality  are  deduced  and  are  made  to  conform  to  the  laws  of 
logic  they  too  are  logically  subsequent  to  logic ;  and  in  so  far  as  logic  is  logically 
present  in  them  it  is  itself  a  theory  or  part  of  a  theory  of  reality. 

2  The  terms  'knowledge,'  'consciousness,'  and  'experience'  found  in  common  sense 
and  in  psychology  are  not  logically  fundamental,  but  are  logically  subsequent  to 
parts  at  least  of  a  theory  of  reality  that  asserts  the  existence  of  terms  and  relations 
which  are  not  consciousness  or  experience.     E.g.  the   psychical   is   distinguished 
from  the  physical  and  the  physiological. 

Now  idealism  has  not  shown  that  the  terms  'knowledge,'  'consciousness,'  and 
'experience'  of  its  epistemology  or  of  its  theory  of  reality  are  logically  fundamental 
or  indefinable,  nor  has  it  succeeded  in  defining  them  without  logically  prior  terms 
that  are  elsewhere  explicitly  excluded  from  its  theory  of  reality.  In  short,  idealistic 
epistemologists  have  borrowed  the  terms  '  knowledge, '  '  consciousness, '  and  '  ex- 
perience from  psychology,  but  have  ignored  or  denied  the  propositions  in  psychology 
that  are  logically  prior.  In  other  words,  epistemology  has  not  thus  far  made  itself 
logically  independent  of  psychology  nor  has  it  freed  itself  logically  from  the  com- 
mon-sense dualism  of  psychology.  On  the  contrary,  epistemology  from  Locke 
until  to-day  has  been  and  has  remained,  in  part  at  least,  a  branch  of  psychology. 


474  APPENDIX 

As  corollaries  of  the  foregoing : 

7.  The  nature  of  reality  cannot  be  inferred  merely  from  the  nature  of 
knowledge. 

8.  The  entities  under  study  in  logic,  mathematics,  physics,  and  many 
other  sciences  are  not  mental  in  any  proper  or  usual  meaning  of  the  word 
'  mental.' 

9.  The  proposition,  "This  or  that  object  is  known,"  does  not  imply  that 
such  object  is  conditioned  by  the  knowing.     In  other  words,  it  does  not 
force  us  to  infer  that  such  object  is  spiritual,  that  it  exists  only  as  the  ex- 
periential content  of  some  mind,  or  that  it  may  not  be  ultimately  real 

just  as  known. 

WALTER  T.  MARVIN. 

ni 

I.    The  Meaning  of  Realism. 

1.  Realism  holds  that  things  known  may  continue  to  exist  unaltered 
when  they  are  not  known,  or  that  things  may  pass  in  and  out  of  the  cogni- 
tive relation  without  prejudice  to  their  reality,  or  that  the  existence  of  a 
thing  is  not  correlated  with  or  dependent  upon  the  fact  that  anybody  ex- 
periences it,  perceives  it,  conceives  it,  or  is  in  any  way  aware  of  it. 

2.  Realism  is  opposed  to  subjectivism  or  epistemological  idealism  which 
denies  that  things  can  exist  apart  from  an  experience  of  them,  or  inde- 
pendently of  the  cognitive  relation. 

3.  The  point  at  issue  between  realism  and  idealism  should  not  be  con- 
fused with  the  points  at  issue  between  materialism  and  spiritualism, 
automatism  and  interactionism,  empiricism  and  rationalism,  or  pluralism 
and  absolutism. 

II.  The  Opposition  to  Realism.  Among  the  various  classic  refutations 
of  realism  the  following  fallacious  assumptions  and  inferences  are  promi- 
nent : 

1.  The  Psychological  Argument :  The  mind  can  have  for  its  direct  ob- 
ject only  its  own  ideas  or  states,  and  external  objects,  if  they  exist  at  all, 
can  only  be  known  indirectly  by  a  process  of  inference,  of  questionable 
validity  and  doubtful  utility.    This  principle  is  fallacious  because  a  know- 
ing process  is  never  its  own  object,  but  is  rather  the  means  by  which  some 
other  object  is  known.    The  object  thus  known  or  referred  to  may  be 
another  mental  state,  a  physical  thing,  or  a  merely  logical  entity. 

2.  The  Intuitional  Argument :  This  argument  stands  out  most  promi- 


PROGRAM  AND  FIRST  PLATFORM  475 

nently  in  the  philosophy  of  Berkeley.  It  has  two  forms.  The  first  con- 
sists of  a  confused  identification  of  a  truism  and  an  absurdity.  The  tru- 
ism :  We  can  only  know  that  objects  exist,  when  they  are  known.  The 
absurdity :  We  know  that  objects  can  only  exist  when  they  are  known.  The 
second  form  of  the  arguments  derives  its  force  from  a  play  upon  the  word 
'  idea,'  as  follows :  Every  'idea'  (meaning  a  mental  process  or  state)  is  incap- 
able of  existing  apart  from  a  mind;  every  known  entity  is  an  'idea'  (mean- 
ing an  object  of  thought) ;  therefore,  every  known  entity  is  incapable  of  ex- 
isting apart  from  a  mind.  It  is  to  the  failure  to  perceive  these  fallacies 
that  ideah'sm  owes  its  supposedly  axiomatic  character. 

3.  The  Physiological  Argument:  Because  the  sensations  we  receive 
determine  what  objects  we  shall  know,  therefore  the  objects  known  are 
constructs  or  products  of  our  perceptual  experience.  The  fallacy  here 
consists  in  arguing  from  the  true  premise  that  sensations  are  the  ratio 
cognoscendi  of  the  external  world,  to  the  false  conclusion  that  they  are 
therefore  its  ratio  fiendi  or  essendi. 

III.     The  Implications  of  Realism. 

1.  Cognition  is  a  peculiar  type  of  relation  which  may  subsist  between  a 
living  being  and  any  entity. 

2.  Cognition  belongs  to  the  same  world  as  that  of  its  objects.    It  has 
its  place  in  the  order  of  nature.    There  is  nothing  transcendental  or  super- 
natural about  it. 

3.  The  extent  to  which  consciousness  pervades  nature,  and  the  condi- 
tions under  which  it  may  arise  and  persist,  are  questions  which  can  be 
solved,  if  at  all,  only  by  the  methods  of  empiricism  and  naturalism. 

W.  P.  MONTAGUE. 

IV 

1.  The  object  or  content  of  consciousness  is  any  entity  in  so  far  as  it  is 
responded  to  by  another  entity  in  a  specific  manner  exhibited  by  the  reflex 
nervous  system.    Thus  physical  nature,  for  example,  is,  under  certain 
circumstances,  directly  present  in  consciousness. 

In  its  historical  application,  this  means  that  Cartesian  dualism  and  the 
representative  theory  are  false ;  and  that  attempts  to  overcome  these  by 
reducing  mind  and  nature  to  one  another  or  to  some  third  substance,  are 
gratuitous. 

2.  The  specific  response  which  determines  an  entity  to  be  content  of 


476  APPENDIX 

consciousness  does  not  directly  modify  such  entities  otherwise  than  to 
endow  them  with  this  content  status.  In  other  words,  consciousness 
selects  from  a  field  of  entities  which  it  does  not  create. 

In  its  historical  application,  this  implies  the  falsity  of  Berkeleian  and 
post-Berkeleian  idealism  in  so  far  as  this  asserts  that  consciousness  is  a 
general  ratio  essendi. 

3.  The  response  which  determines  an  entity  to  be  content  may  itself 
be  responded  to  and  made  content  in  like  manner.    In  other  words,  the 
difference  between  subject  and  object  of  consciousness  is  not  a  difference 
of  quality  or  substance,  but  a  difference  of  office  or  place  in  a  configura- 
tion. 

In  its  historical  application,  this  implies  the  falsity  not  only  of  the  Car- 
tesian dualism,  but  of  all  idealistic  dualisms  that,  because  they  regard 
subject  and  object  as  non-interchangeable,  conclude  that  the  subject  is 
either  unknowable,  or  knowable  only  in  some  unique  way  such  as  intui- 
tively or  reflexively. 

4.  The  same  entity  possesses  both  immanence,  by  virtue  of  its  mem- 
bership in  one  class,  and  also  transcendence,  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  it 
may  belong  also  to  indefinitely  many  other  classes.    In  other  words,  im- 
manence and  transcendence  are  compatible  and  not  contradictory  predi- 
cates. 

In  its  historical  application,  this  implies  the  falsity  of  the  subjectivistic 
argument  from  the  ego-centric  predicament,  i.e.  the  argument  that  be- 
cause entities  are  content  of  consciousness  they  can  not  also  transcend 
consciousness ;  it  also  implies  that,  so  far  as  based  on  such  subjectivistic 
premises,  the  idealistic  theory  of  a  transcendent  subjectivity  is  gratuitous. 

5.  An  entity  possesses  some  relations  independently  of   one  another; 
and  the  ignorance  or  discovery  of  further  relations  does  not  invalidate  a 
limited  knowledge  of  relations. 

In  its  historical  applications,  this  implies  the  falsity  of  the  contention 
of  absolute  idealism  that  it  is  necessary  to  know  all  of  an  entity's  relations 
in  order  to  know  any  of  its  relations,  or  that  only  the  whole  truth  is  wholly 
true. 

6.  The  logical  categories  of  unity,  such  as  homogeneity,  consistency, 
coherence,  interrelation,  etc.,  do  not  in  any  case  imply  a  determinate  de- 
gree of  unity.    Hence  the  degree  of  unity  which  the  world  possesses  can 
not  be  determined  logically,  but  only  by  assembling  the  results  of  the  spe- 
cial branches  of  knowledge.    On  the  basis  of  such  evidence,  there  is  a 


PROGRAM  AND  FIRST  PLATFORM  477 

present  presumption  in  favor  of  the  hypothesis  that  the  world  as  a  whole 
is  less  unified  than  are  certain  of  its  parts. 

In  its  historical  application,  this  implies  that  the  great  speculative  mon- 
isms, such  as  those  of  Plato,  Spinoza,  and  certain  modern  idealists,  are 
both  dogmatic  and  contrary  to  the  evidence. 

RALPH  BARTON  PERRY. 


The  realist  holds  that  things  known  are  not  products  of  the  knowing 
relation  nor  essentially  dependent  for  their  existence  or  behavior  upon 
that  relation.  This  doctrine  has  three  claims  upon  your  acceptance: 
first,  it  is  the  natural,  instinctive  belief  of  all  men,  and  for  this,  if  for  no 
other  reason,  puts  the  burden  of  proof  upon  those  who  would  discredit 
it ;  secondly,  all  refutations  of  it  known  to  the  present  writer  presuppose 
or  even  actually  employ  some  of  its  exclusive  implications ;  and,  thirdly, 
it  is  logically  demanded  by  all  the  observations  and  hypotheses  of  the 
natural  sciences,  including  psychology. 

Involved  more  or  less  intimately  in  a  realistic  view  are  the  following : 

1.  One  identical  term  may  stand  in  many  relations. 

2.  A  term  may  change  some  of  its  relations  to  some  other  terms  with- 
out thereby  changing  ah1  its  other  relations  to  those  same  or  to  other  terms. 

3.  What  relations  are  changed  by  a  given  change  of  relation  cannot 
always  be  deduced  merely  from  the  nature  of  either  the  terms  involved 
or  their  relation. 

4.  The  hypothesis  that  'there  can  be  no  object  without  a  subject'  is 
pure  tautology.     It  is  confessedly  a  description  of  the  cognitive  situation 
only;  and  it  says,  in  effect,  that  everything  experienced  is  experienced. 
It  becomes  significant  only  by  virtue  of  the  wholly  unwarranted  assump- 
tion that  doctrines  1,  2,  and  3,  above  given,  are  false.    This  assumption, 
however,  is  fatal  to  the  idealist's  supposed  discovery,  inasmuch  as  it  means 
that  there  can  be  no  true  propositions.    In  conceding  this,  the  idealist 
refutes  himself. 

5.  In  no  body  of  knowledge,  not  even  in  evidences  about  the  nature  of 
the  knowledge  relation,  can  we  discover  that  possible  knowledge  is  limited 
or  what  its  limits  may  be. 

6.  Entities  are  transcendent  to  the  so-called 'knowing  mind'  or  'con- 
sciousness '  only  as  a  term  is  to  the  relations  in  which  it  may  stand,  viz. 


478  APPENDIX 

in  two  radically  different  manners :  first,  as  the  term  is  not  identical  with 
the  particular  relation  in  which  it  stands,  so  too  a  thing  in  the  knowledge 
relation  is  not  the  relation  itself ;  secondly,  as  the  term  may  enter  into  or 
go  out  of  a  particular  relation,  without  thereby  being  changed  essentially 
or  destroyed,  so  too  can  an  object  of  knowledge  exist  prior  to  and  after 
its  entrance  into  or  removal  from  the  knowledge  relation.  Transcend- 
ence thus  means,  in  the  first  place,  distinctness  and,  in  the  second  place, 
functional  independence. 

7.  There  may  be  axiomatic  truths  or  intuitive  truths.     But  the  fact 
that  a  truth  belongs  to  either  of  these  classes  does  not  make  it  fundamental 
or  important  for  a  theory  of  knowledge,  much  less  for  a  theory  of  reality. 
Like  all  other  truths,  it  too  must  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  other  rele- 
vant truths. 

8.  Though  terms  are  not  modified  by  being  brought  into  new  contexts, 
this  does  not  imply  that  an  existent  cannot  be  changed  by  another  ex- 
istent. 

WALTER  B.  PITKIN. 

VI 

1.  Realism,  while  admitting  the  tautology  that  every  entity  which  is 
known  is  in  relation  to  knowing  or  experience  or  consciousness,  holds  that 
this  knowing,  etc.,  is  eliminable,  so  that  the  entity  is  known  as  it  would 
be  if  the  knowing  were  not  taking  place.    Briefly,  the  entity  is,  in  its  being, 
behavior,  and  character,  independent  of  the  knowing.    This  position 
agrees  with  common  sense  and  with  science  in  holding  (1)  that  not  all 
entities  are  mental,  conscious,  or  spiritual,  and  (2)  that  entities  are  know- 
able  without  being  known. 

2.  The  fact  that  terms  are  in  the  cognitive  relation  does  not  imply  that 
the  terms  are  mutually  dependent  on,  or  capable  of  modifying,  either  each 
other  or  the  relation,  any  more  than  this  dependence,  etc.,  is  implied  for 
any  two  terms  in  any  other  relation.    The  proposition  that  there  is  this 
dependence,  etc.,  constitutes  the  'internal  view'  of  relations.1    Most  of 

1  To  hold  the  'internal  view'  means,  in  my  opinion,  to  hold  that,  in  order  that 
a  relation  may  relate,  the  relation  must  either  (1)  penetrate  its  terms,  or  (2)  be 
mediated  by  an  underlying  (transcendent)  reality.  From  the  penetration  there 
is  deduced  (a)  modification,  or  (6)  similarity,  or  (c)  the  generation  of  a  contradic- 
tion. Cf.  my  paper,  The  Logical  Structure  of  Self-refuting  Systems,  Phti.  Re- 
view, 19,  277-282. 


PROGRAM  AND  FIRST  PLATFORM  479 

those  systems  which  are  opposed  to  realism  can  be  shown  to  presuppose 
this  'internal  view,'  but  this  view  can  be  shown  to  be  self-contradictory 
and  to  presuppose  the  'external  view.' 

3.  That  position  which  is  based  in  part  on  the  acceptance  and  the  con- 
sistent use  and  development  of  the  implications  of  these  logical  doctrines 
which  are  presupposed  as  a  condition  for  any  position  being  stated,  argued, 
and  held  to  be  true,  has,  thereby,  a  strong  presumption  created  in  favor 
of  its  truth.1 

4.  There  is  at  least  one  logical  doctrine  and  one  principle  which  are 
ultimately  presupposed  by  any  system  which  is  held  to  be  true.    That 
doctrine  is  the    'external  view'    of  relations,  and  the  principle  is  that 
truth  is  independent  of  proof,  although  proof  is  not  independent  of  truth. 
The  first  of  these  means,  briefly : 

5.  (1)  That  both  a  term  and  a  relation  are  (unchangeable)  elements  or 
entities ;  (2)  that  a  term  may  stand  in  one  or  in  many  relations  to  one  or 
many  other  terms ;  and  (3)  that  any  of  these  terms  and  that  some  of 
these  relations  could  be  absent  or  that  other  terms  and  relations  could  be 
present  without  there  being  any  resulting  modification,  etc.,  of  the  re- 
maining or  already  present  terms  or  relations. 

6.  By  this  'external  view'  it  is  made  logically  possible  that  the  know- 
ing process  and  its  object  should  be  qualitatively  dissimilar.     (Cf.  1.) 

7.  The  principle  (cf .  4)  means,  that,  while  on  the  one  hand  no  proposi- 
tion is  so  certain  that  it  can  be  regarded  as  exempt  from  examination, 
criticism,  and  the  demand  for  proof,  on  the  other  hand,  any  proposition, 
if  free  from  self-contradiction,  may  be  true  (in  some  system).    In  this 
sense  every  proposition  is  tentative,  even  those  of  this  platform. 

Corollary.  —  It  is  impossible  to  get  a  criterion,  definition,  theory,  or  con- 
tent for  the  concept  'absolute'  by  which  it  can  be  absolutely  known  or 
proved  that  any  criterion,  definition,  theory,  or  content  is  absolutely  true, 
i.e.  is  more  than  tentative.  The  most  that  can  be  claimed  for  such  a 
criterion,  etc.,  is  that  it  may  be  absolutely  true,  although  not  proved  to  be. 

1  Such  a  system  /  hold  to  be  realism,  its  chief  feature  being  the  interpretation  of 
the  cognitive  relation  in  accordance  with  the  'external  view.'  This  'external 
view '  can  be  held  to  be  true  quite  consistently  with  itself,  and  is  in  this  sense,  I  hold, 
self-consistent,  as  is  also,  in  my  opinion,  realism.  Accordingly  I  hold  further  that 
realism  is  not  a  merely  dogmatic  system,  and  that,  as  self-consistent,  it  refutes  and 
does  not  merely  contradict  certain  opposed  systems  which,  as  based  on  the  '  internal 
view,'  are  self -refuting. 


480  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

8.  Any  entity  may  be  known  as  it  really  is  in  some  respects  without  its 
being  known  in  all  respects  and  without  the  other  entities  to  which  it  is 
related  being  known,  so  that  knowledge  can  increase  by  accretion. 

9.  Knowing,  consciousness,  etc.,  are  facts  to  be  investigated  only  in  the 
same  way  as  are  other  facts,  and  are  not  necessarily  more  important  than 
are  other  facts. 

10.  The  position  stated  in  this  platform,  which  is  a  position  concerning 
knowing  as  well  as  other  things,  can  apply  to  itself,  as  a  special  instance 
of  knowledge,  all  its  own  propositions  about  knowledge.1 

EDWABD  GLEASON  SPAULDING. 


NOTE  ON  PROFESSOR  HOLT  S  ESSAY 

WITH  a  view  to  a  clearer  understanding  by  the  reader  of  the  theories  of 
error  and  consciousness  set  forth  by  Holt  and  myself,  I  here  summarize 
what  seem  to  me  to  be  the  main  points  at  issue  between  us  : 

I.  I  disagree  with  Holt's  theory  that  specific  qualities  are  mere  temporal 
condensations  of  primitive  and  qualitatively  simple  pulses,  on  the  ground 
that  such  temporal  condensation  constitutes  the  attribute  of  intensity. 
When  hi  a  series  of  stimuli  there  occur  positive  intervals  of  empty  tune 
between  their  effects  on  the  sensory  center,  we  experience  the  series  as  a 
succession  of  discretes.     If  the  series  of  stimuli  increases  in  rapidity  to 
the  point  when  the  intervals  between  their  effects  on  the  sensory  center 
fall  to  zero,  we  experience  the  series  as  a  single  continuously  enduring 
quality.    When  the  succession  of  stimuli  becomes  so  rapid  that  their  effects 
upon  the  sensory  center  actually  overlap  or  interpenetrate,  we  get  not  a 
new  quality  but  an  increase  in  the  original  intensity  of  the  old  quality  — 
an  increase  which  is  proportioned  to  the  degree  of  the  overlapping  or  tem- 
poral condensation.     In  short,  Holt's  concept  of  temporal  condensation 
provides  a  good  analytic  definition  of  the  category  of  intensity,  and  for 
that  very  reason  it  cannot  be  used  to  express  qualitative  difference. 

II.  I  disagree  with  Holt's  doctrine  that  contradictions  are  objective 
and  related  after  the  manner  of  opposing  forces,  and  hence  with  his  con- 
clusion that  these  objective  contradictions  constitute  the  content  of  an 

1 1  hold  that  for  this  reason  the  position  here  stated  is  self-critical,  and  that  it  is 
this  which  distinguishes  it  from  a  large  class  of  historical  systems,  notably  phenome- 
nalism, subjective  and  objective  idealism,  and  absolutism. 


SPECIFIC  ENERGIES  481 

erroneous  experience  and  cause  its  occurrence.  The  unreal  object  or  con- 
tent of  an  error  subsists  extra-mentally  but  it  does  not  contribute  in  any 
causal  manner  to  its  being  apprehended.  It  is  the  nature  of  the  unreal, 
or  merely  subsistent,  to  be  sterile  of  consequences.  It  can  be  known  but 
it  cannot  cause  itself  to  be  known,  and  apart  from  being  known  it  has  no 
efficiency.  The  non-existent  bent  stick  cannot  cause  us  to  perceive  it, 
but  an  existent  straight  stick,  partly  immersed  in  water,  can  produce  by 
reason  of  the  different  refracting  powers  of  water  and  air  an  effect  upon  the 
eye  and  brain  of  the  same  kind  as  would  have  been  produced  by  a  stick 
that  was  really  bent,  with  the  result  that  a  non-existent  bent  stick  becomes 
the  object  of  an  (erroneous)  apprehension. 

III.  The  most  serious  difference  between  Holt's  conclusions  and  my 
own  concerns  the  nature  of  consciousness.  We  both  agree  that  extra- 
organic  objects  produce  in  the  brain  effects  which  more  or  less  resemble 
their  causes  and  which  are  the  means  by  which  those  causes  are  perceived. 
But  we  differ  as  to  the  manner  in  which  these  brain  effects  are  instrumental 
to  perception.  In  the  first  part  of  Holt's  paper,  he  appears  to  me  to  ad- 
duce evidence  that  would  support  the  view  that  the  objects  of  which  we 
are  conscious  are  within  the  brain.  He  speaks  (1)  of  the  effects  produced 
in  the  nervous  system  as  being  true  parts  of  the  extra-organic  objects 
which  cause  them,  and  of  the  object  being  present  in  its  effects,  as  a  man's 
expression  is  truly  present  in  his  portrait;  (2)  of  the  temporal  condensa- 
tions of  neural  vibrations  as  the  basis  for  the  experience  of  secondary 
qualities;  (3)  of  the  non-psychical  character  of  illusory  objects,  as  im- 
plied by  their  similarity  to  the  distorted  images  on  a  photographic  plate. 

It  seems  to  me  that  these  arguments,  if  valid,  would  obviously  imply 
that  the  objects  of  which  we  are  conscious  constitute  the  system  of  effects 
projected  upon  the  brain;  and  that,  when  this  conclusion  is  disavowed  the 
foregoing  evidence  loses  all  its  relevancy.  As  I  understand  it,  it  is  this 
conception  of  consciousness  as  consisting  of  the  intra-organic  projections 
of  extra-organic  objects  that  is  defended  by  Pitkin  in  his  article.  Now 
despite  the  plausibility  of  the  projection  theory  it  is,  I  believe,  open  to 
certain  insuperable  objections  which  however  need  not  be  mentioned  here, 
for  it  seems  that  after  all  Holt  rejects  it  as  explicitly  as  1  do,  and  in  the 
last  part  of  his  article  sets  forth  what  appears  to  me  the  wholly  different 
conception  of  consciousness  as  a  'specific  response'  to  extra-organic 
objects  which  by  virtue  of  being  thus  responded  to  become  the  field  of 

objects  in  consciousness. 
2i 


482  ILLUSORY  EXPERIENCE 

The  whole  question  of  the  nature  of  consciousness  thus  seems  to  hinge 
on  the  meaning  of  the  'specific  response.'  But  I  cannot  find  any  ade- 
quate statement  of  what  this  response  is.  In  spite  of  its  alleged  'specific' 
character,  consciousness,  it  seems  to  me,  might  as  well  be  identified  with 
X.  If  by  the  response  Holt  means  anything  physical,  such  as  an  organic 
movement  or  efferent  nerve  current,  my  objections  would  be  those  set 
forth  in  my  article  against  the  theory  that  consciousness  is  behavior. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  specific  response  which  constitutes  consciousness 
is  not  behavior  or  movement,  the  only  alternative  seems  to  me  to  be 
that  of  identifying  it  with  the  relation  of  self-transcending  implication, 
which  the  brain-states  sustain  to  their  extra-organic  causes.  But  this 
is  the  view  which  I  have  defended  and  which  Holt  rejects. 

W.  P.  MONTAGUE. 

NOTE   ON  PROFESSOR  MONTAGUE'S  ESSAY 

As  the  reader  of  our  two  essays  will  readily  gfee,  my  view  of  consciousness 
differs  widely  from  that  of  Montague.  A  fundamental  feature  of  this 
difference  is  to  be  found  in  the  concept  of  self-transcendent  reference, 
on  which  Montague's  theory  hinges;  for,  according  to  him,  "it  is  the 
self -transcending  implications  of  these  brain-states  that  constitute  our 
consciousness  of  the  spatio-temporal  world  in  which  we  live."  And  the 
germ  of  such  self-transcendence  seems  to  be  found  in  the  causal  rela- 
tion: "Each  event-element  has  over  and  above  its  own  qualities  and  its 
own  position  in  space  and  time,  something  which  implies  or  refers  to  other 
events.  It  is  both  an  agent  and  a  patient  of  what  is  not  itself."  Now 
whether  or  not  a  case  of  self-transcendent  reference  is  anywhere  to  be 
found,  I  do  not  think  that  one  is  found  in  the  relation  between  brain- 
states  and  their  correlated  contents  of  consciousness.  The  brain-state, 
as  I  believe,  does  not  refer  by  self-transcendence  to  the  object  that  is  at 
the  moment  content  of  consciousness,  but  it  is  a  specific  response  to  that 
object.  Nor,  again,  do  I  find  such  self-transcendence  in  the  case  of 
causality,  for  here  I  discover  nothing  but  the  constant  function  of  an 
independent  variable  (generally  time). 

Again,  Montague  and  I  differ  in  our  understanding  of  error.  I  do  not 
look  on  error  as  primarily  or  even  generally  attributable  to  anything  that 
could  be  called  the  'distorting'  influence  of  the  physiological  mechanism 
of  perception  and  thought.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  extra-mental  world  is 


SPECIFIC   ENERGIES  483 

teeming  with  contradictions  and  unrealities,  and  that  these  can  come  to 
consciousness  by  virtue  of  a  psychical  process,  which  presents  no  elements 
of  'distortion.' 

The  application  of  Montague's  view  and  of  mine  to  the  empirical  facts 
of  psychology,  and  of  modern  logic,  must  decide  as  to  which  is  the  better 

descriptive  and  explanatory  principle. 

E.  B.  HOLT. 


NOTE   ON   THE   ESSAYS   OF   PROFESSORS   HOLT  AND   MONTAGUE 

THERE  is  much  in  these  two  essays  which  I  should  like  to  discuss, 
if  space  permitted.  Holt's  theory  of  time-density  and  of  cognitive  cross- 
sections  and  Montague's  rejection  of  the  projective  hypothesis  interest 
me  most  acutely.  I  agree  fundamentally  with  Holt  in  his  two  doctrines, 
though  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  time-density  yields  qualitative  characters. 
It  may  well  be,  as  Montague  suggests,  that  it  yields  only  the  intensity 
series.  This  is  a  matter  calling  for  thorough  investigation,  and  I  hope 
we  may  soon  attack  it.  But  Holt's  underlying  contention  is  still  sound. 
The  alleged  simple  qualities  and  their  unique  specificities  are '  form  qualities ' 
and  their  simple  constituents  are  minute  physical  events.  These  events 
are  packed  together,  now  in  space,  now  in  tune,  and  again,  perhaps,  in 
both  continua.  If  time-density  yields  intensity,  space-density  probably 
yields  quality ;  but  touching  this,  I  confess  to  much  ignorance. 

As  for  Montague's  rejection  of  the  projective  hypothesis,  I  believe 
it  is  due  to  his  supposing  that  projection  is  the  simple  casting  of  simulacra 
upon  a  screen.  This  is  a  very  natural  misunderstanding,  for  all  cases 
of  spatial  projection  do  involve  the  generating  of  new  figures  definitely 
related  to  the  projected  figures.  But  these  new  figures  are  not  the  pro- 
jective relation.  They  are  only  the  terms  of  the  relation.  And  it  is  just 
this,  their  relation  to  other  terms,  which  constitutes  the  peculiarity  called 
error,  or,  more  precisely,  multiple  value  or  indiscernibility. 

Montague,  I  believe,  opposes  the  projective  hypothesis  chiefly  on 
the  ground  that  it  leaves  the  sentient  organism  in  possession  of  nothing 
more  than  its  own  brain  states,  to  wit,  the  images  projected  upon  some 
parts  of  the  nervous  system.  Now,  there  are  such  images,  at  least  in 
the  more  finely  organized  sensory  systems ;  but  they  are  incidental  products 
of  the  projective  relation,  and  not  the  significant  nature  of  it.  The  efficient 
projective  relations  are  not,  as  it  were,  inside  the  individual  sensory 
elements ;  they  obtain  between  the  latter,  or,  in  other  cases,  between  the 
organism  (its  position  or  condition)  and  the  external  entities  reacted  to. 
In  short,  they  are  not  merely  odd  chemical  properties  of  the  cortex ;  they 

484 


APPENDIX  485 

are  not  physical  properties  at  all.  Hence  there  is  no  danger  of  reducing 
the  mind  to  knowledge  only  of  its  brain  states,  inasmuch  as  these  are 
merely  terms  in  the  projective  relation,  and  not  the  relation  itself. 

Montague  and  Holt  and  I  agree  that,  whatever  consciousness  is,  it 
is  somehow  connected  with  the  activity  of  getting  'beyond  space  and 
time';  that  is,  of  adjusting  variously  to  events  beyond  the  organism's 
own  skin  and  to  conditions  more  than  material.  But  I  differ  from  Mon- 
tague in  locating  the  device  by  which  this  adjustment  is  effected.  I 
regard  the  implicative  relation  as  transverse  to  the  physical  field  of  its 
terms.  The  latter  are  in  space  and  time;  and  their  physical  relations 
are  all  spatio-temporal.  But  the  implicative  relation  is  not.  It  cuts 
across  the  physical  field,  but  it  does  not  cut  in  any  spatio-temporal  dimen- 
sion. (This  is  also  Holt's  opinion,  if  I  mistake  not.)  Against  this 
view  Montague  looks  upon  the  implicative  relation  as  being  longitudinal 
to  the  physical  field,  actually  in  and  through  it,  running  from  cause  to 
effect,  and  hence  having  a  genuine  historical  flow.  It  is  imbedded  in  the 
stuff  of  things  as  electric  charges  are,  as  velocities,  stresses  and  strains 
and  pulls  are.  It  is,  indeed,  one  phase  of  causation. 

But  for  me  this  hypothesis  engenders  difficulties,  of  which  I  mention 
only  three : 

1.  Implication  cannot  be  a  mere  counter-phase  of  causation,  inas- 
much as  we  find  the  implicative  relation  between  terms  which  are  not 
causally  related  in  any  series.    For  instance,  one  unreal  may  imply 
another:    the  death  of  the  Emperor  of  the  United  States  implies  the 
death  of  the  head  of  the  ruling  American  house.    I  know  that  Montague 
denies  that  this  is  a  genuine  implication,  as  he  denies  all  implying  between 
unreals.    But  to  discuss  this  would  be  to  open  the  whole  field  of  modern 
logic ;  so  I  leave  the  reader  with  the  problem  and  I  pass  to  a  more  obvious 
instance  of  non-causal  implication,  namely  that  between  timeless  entities. 
The  triangle  implies  a  constant  sum  of  interior  angles;   but  the  angles 
are  neither  the  cause  nor  the  effect  of  the  triangle,  they  are  only  parts 
of  it ;  and  the  geometrical  proposition  is  one  about  the  whole  implying 
something  about  its  parts.    Again,  one  event  may  imply  another  which 
is  simultaneous  with  it  and  not  causally  connected.    Thus   sunlight  in 
New  York  City  implies  darkness  in  Hong  Kong;    here  the  two  events 
are  effects  of  the  same  complex  causes,  not  effects  or  causes  of  each  other. 

2.  If  causes  and  effects  reciprocally  imply  each  other,  then  the  proximate 
cause  implies  its  effect,  and  w'ce  versa.    Hence,  the  last  brain  state  before 


486  APPENDIX 

the  cognizing  of  an  object  ought  to  be  at  least  one  of  the  implicates  given 
in  that  instant  of  consciousness.    But  this  is  not  the  case. 

3.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  this  implicative  relation  is  transitive,  the 
percipient  knows  immediately  some  term  in  the  implicative  series  beyond 
his  own  brain  state.  But  why  does  he  know  the  one  which,  let  us  say, 
is  located  at  a  given  point  in  space?  Why  does  he  perceive  the  sun, 
instead  of  an  ether  wave,  two  inches  or  eighteen  thousand  miles  from 
his  retina?  Why  does  the  implication  stop  anywhere?  Surely  the 
cause-effect  series  is  prodigiously  long,  and  the  implicative  relation  is 
demonstrably  transitive ;  hence  the  brain  state  might  well  be  expected 
to  imply  all  its  impliers,  and  thus  simple  perception  ought  to  yield  us  the 
longed-for  all-in-all  knowledge  about  the  flower  in  the  crannied  wall. 
The  answer  to  this  difficulty  cannot  be  that  an  effect  implies  its  simplest 
cause  only ;  for  the  proximate  cause  is  the  simplest  always,  yet  it  is  never 
implied. 

I  raise  these  queries  because  I  believe  that  they  lose  their  awkwardness 
as  soon  as  we  give  up  the  longitudinal  hypothesis  and  accept  the  transverse. 
If  I  mistake  not,  my  differences  with  Montague  reduce  almost  wholly  to 
this  issue. 

WALTER  B.  PITKIN. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ACCELERATION,  204  ff. 

ACCIDENTS,  definition  of,  264. 

ACTIVITY,  mental,  439. 

ADJUSTMENT,  389. 

AGREEMENT,  necessity  of  explicit,  28  ff . 

ALEXANDER,  S.,  439. 

ALGEDONIC  QUALITIES,  408. 

ANALYSIS,  151,  155,  329-330,  338-339, 
341-342  ;  arithmetical,  173  ff. ;  atomic, 
225;  and  Bergson,  160  ff. ;  concep- 
tual, 230  ff. ;  enumerative,  162  ff. ; 
experimental,  156 ;  formal,  156 ;  intro- 
spective, 332-333,  334-337,  343,  345- 
349 ;  as  a  necessary  method,  24  ff. ; 
perceptual,  230  ff.;  and  pragmatism, 
158  ff. ;  of  secondary  qualities,  331-349  ; 
types  of,  155. 

ART,  141. 

ATOMISM,  psychological,  337-340,  350- 
352. 

ATOMS,  225  ff. 

ATTENTION,  limited  field  of,  292-294. 

ATTRIBUTE-THING,  109. 

BEING,  357-359,  372-373. 

BELIEF,  double  meaning  of,  256;  nature 

of,  292-294. 
BERGSON,  H.,  160  ff.,  171,  186,  206,  218, 

224,  231  ff.,  247,  379. 
BERKELEY,  G.,  6  ff. 
BIOLOGICAL   SITUATION,   formal  analysis 

of,  380. 

BRADLEY,  F.  H.,  160  ff. 
BRAIN,    are   perceived    objects    inside  ? 

276-277. 
BRENTANO,  F.,  331-337. 

CAIRO,  E.,  17. 

CAUSALITY,   no   place   for  in   world   of 

pure    fact,    264 ;     meaning    of,    265 ; 

substantist   view  of,    266-267 ;     posi- 

tivist  view  of,  266-267. 
CAUSATION,  109. 
CHANGE  OP  STATE,  264. 
CLASS,  170. 
COGNITION,    as    selective    rather    than 

creative,    295 ;     as    self -transcending 

reference,  282-285. 


COMPLEMENTARINESS    OF    COLORS,    312, 

327,  334. 

COMPLEXES,  119  ff. 
CONCEPTS,  233-236. 
CONDUCTION,  396. 
CONSCIOUSNESS,  443;  definition  of,  281; 

and  nervous  system,  353-355 ;  no  place 

for  in  world  of  pure  fact,  264. 
CONTENT,  mental,  147. 
CONTRADICTION,  355-356,  361-365,  367, 

370. 
CRITICISM,  cf.   EPISTEMOLOGY;    defined, 

49;  a  vicious  circle,  72  ff. 
CROSS-SECTION,  354,  368,  373-375. 

DEFINITION,  22  ff. 

DEPENDENCE,  and  relation,  106. 

DESCARTES,  R.,  4  ff. 

DEWEY,  J.,  115,  149,  379,  437. 

DOGMATISM,  defined,  49  ff. 

DRIESCH,  H.,  245  ff. ;  379. 

DUALISM,  4  ff . ;   futility  of,  275 ;  theory 

of  Epistemological,  251. 
DURATION,  214  ff. ;   Bergson's  doctrine 

of,    212  224;    as    function   of    space, 

time,  and  quality,  263. 
DYNAMICS,  212  ff. 

ELEMENT  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS,  320,  337- 
340,  350-352. 

ENERGY,  as  stored  in  the  brain,  285. 

ENVIRONMENT,  443. 

EPISTEMOLOGICAL  TRIANGLE,  286-289. 

EPISTEMOLOGY,  cf.  CRITICISM,  DOGMA- 
TISM, defined  as  the  fundamental 
science,  45  ff. ;  its  failure  to  contrib- 
ute to  our  knowledge  of  reality, 
83  ff. ;  its  logical  position  relatively 
to  the  other  sciences,  60  ff. ;  its  pre- 
suppositions, 67  ff . ;  not  logically  funda- 
mental, 51  ff. ;  presupposes  a  theory 
of  reality,  74  ff. ;  its  value  to  the  met- 
aphysician, 94  ff. 

ERROR,  357  ff.,  367  ff. ;  467,  definition 
of,  252 ;  degrees  of,  297-299  ;  genesis 
of,  289  seq. ;  two  kinds  of,  298-292. 

EUCKEN,  R.,  19. 

EVENT,  as  function  of  space,  time,  and 


489 


490 


INDEX 


quality,  263  ;  as  ultimate  element,  253, 

254. 

EXISTENCE,  definition  of,  255. 
EXPERIENCE,  equivocal  use  of,  250  ff. ; 

meaning  of,  150. 

EXPERIMENTALISM,  fallacies  of,  259-260. 
EXTENDED  THING,  264.  ** 
EXTERNAL  RELATIONS,  theory  of,  167. 

FALLACIES,  definition  by  initial  predica- 
tion, 15  ff . ;  egocentric  predicament, 
11  ff. ;  exclusive  particularity,  14  ff. ; 
illicit  importance,  19  ff. ;  indiscernibles, 
427;  morphological,  434 :  pseudo-sim- 
plicity, 12  ff. ;  psychological  meton- 
ymy, 256 ;  psychophysical  metonymy, 
294-297 ;  relation  of  to  logic,  262 ; 
speculative  dogma,  16  ff . ;  verbal  sug- 
gestion, 18  ff. 

FALSE,  definition  of,  252 ;  identity  of 
with  unreal,  252. 

FLATFISH,  397. 

GEOTHOPISM,  390. 

GESTALTQUALITAETEN,  340-341,  346- 
349. 

HALLUCINATIONS,  461. 

HISTORY,  142. 

HOBHOUSE,  L.  T.,  131. 

HUME,  D.,  7  ff. 

HYLOPSTCHISM,  definition  of,  279 ;  rela- 
tion of  to  panpsychism  and  pan- 
hylism,  280  ;  relation  of  to  positivism 
and  substantism,  279. 

IDEALISM,  theory  of  epistemological,251. 

IDEAS,  BERKELEY'S  equivocal  use  of, 
258. 

IDENTITY,  numerical,  as  function  of  space, 
time,  and  quality,  263  ;  qualitative,  as 
function  of  apace,  time,  and  quality, 
262. 

ILLUSIONS,  303-311,  352-353. 

IMPLICATES,  perceived  objects  as,  282- 
285. 

IMPLICATION,  112,  441 ;  relation  of  to 
potentiality,  282-283. 

IMPULSE,  mediation  of,  420. 

INDEPENDENCE,  cases  of,  1 18  ff . ;  and  con- 
sciousness, 126  ff.;  of  ego,  144,;  and 
knowledge,  126  ff. ;  meanings  of,  99  ff. ; 
106  ff.,  117;  and  non-relation,  113; 
and  perception,  149;  and  priority, 
115. 

INDISCERNIBLES,  fallacy  of,  427;  pro- 
jective,  458,  465. 


JOACHIM,  H.,  104,  114,  128,  133. 
JUDGMENT,  double  meaning  of,  256-257. 

KANT,  I.,  8  ff.,  78  ff. 

KNOWLEDGE,    ambiguity   of   the   word, 

56  ff . ;  the  problem  of  its  possibility, 

61  ff.,  70  ff. 

LAWS  OF  THOUGHT,  non-mental  nature 

of,  261. 

LEAST  PERCEPTIBLE  DIFFERENCE,  417. 
LOCKE,  J.,  4  ff.,  101. 
LOGIC,    a   fundamental   science,  61   ff. ; 

and    consciousness,    129    ff . ;     not    a 

science  of  the  knowing  process,  52  ff . ; 

non-psychological  nature  of,  261-262. 
LOGICAL  RIGOR,  necessity  of,  25  ff. 
LOVEJOY,  A.  O.,  462. 

McGlLVARY,  E.  B.,  114. 

MECHANICAL,  how  related  to  vital  and 
sensory,  284. 

MEISLING,  A.  A.,  312,  326-328,  349. 

METAPHYSICS,  its  foundations,  92  ff.,  its 
indebtedness  to  epistemology,  94  ff. 

METONYMY,  verbal  fallacy  of  psycho- 
physical,  256 ;  material  fallacy  of 
psychophysical,  294-297. 

MONISM,  futility  of  agnostic,  275-276. 

MOORE,  G.  E.,  146. 

MOTION,  analysis  of,  193  ff. ;  as  function 
of  space,  time,  and  quality,  264. 

MUELLER,  Johannes,  314,  330. 

MUENSTERBERG,  H.,  316,  337-339. 

MYSTICISM,  160. 

NAIVE  REALISM,  theory  of,  251. 
NATURAL  REALISM,  theory  of,  251. 
NERVE-IMPULSE,   periodicities   of,   321- 

325,  328,  349,  351. 
NUMBERS,  173,  177  ff. 

ORGANISMS,  analysis  of,  243  ff. 

PANHYLISM,    two    types     of,    268-269; 

relation  to  behavior,  271 :  refutation 

of,  269-272. 

PANPSYCHISM,  refutation  of,  272-275. 
PART-WHOLE,  107. 
PERCEPTION,  230  ff.  and  independence, 

149 ;  an  ultimate  knowledge,  64  ff. 
PERSPECTIVE,  Translations  of,  401. 
PHASE-UNITS,  254. 
PHILOSOPHY,  HISTORY  OF,  separation  of 

philosophy  from,  30  ff. 
POSITIVIST  VIEW  OF  CAUSALITY,   266- 

267. 

POSTKANTIANISM,  8  ff. 


INDEX 


491 


POTENTIALITY,  directions  of,  281-282; 
levels  of,  283-284;  relation  of  to 
consciousness,  281 ;  relation  of  to 
implication,  282-283. 

PRAGMATISM,  158,  415,  437. 

PRIORITY,  logical,  204. 

PROJECTION,  449  ff. 

PROPOSITIONS,  definiton  of,  254 ;  exist- 
ential, 255 ;  non-existential,  255 ; 
universal,  255. 

PROPOSITIONS  vs.  TERMS,  357-358,  262- 
363 ;  their  subsistence,  57  ff. ;  their 
truth  a  logical  ultimate,  59. 

PSYCHOPHYSICAL  METONYMY,  material 
fallacy  of,  294-297. 

QUALITIES,  algedonic,  408;  as  ultimate 
category,  263 ;  primary  and  secondary, 
308,  313,  355 ;  secondary,  308  ff.,  331 
ff.,  347,  352,  355. 

RATIONALISM,  160. 

REACTION,  types  of,  385 ;  described, 
384. 

REAL,  definition  of,  255. 

REALISM,  analytical,  155 ;  and  biology, 
39  ff.,  377  ff. ;  biological  attack  on, 
378 ;  constructive  tendencies  of,  31  ff.; 
and  epistemology,  41,  45  ff . ;  mean- 
ings of,  99,  103  ;  naive,  2  ff.,  251 ;  New, 
9  ff . ;  polemic  of,  11  ff. ;  program  of 
the  new,  21  ff.;  and  psychology,  37  ff. 

REALITY,  304,  358-361,  366. 

RECIPROCITY,  111. 

REID,  T.,  100  ff. 

RELATION,  165,  and  dependence,  106; 
fallacy  of  internal,  299 ;  internal  theory 
of,  165  ff. 

RESISTANCE,  409. 

REST,  as  function  of  space,  time,  and 
quality,  263. 

ROYCE,  J.,  103,  119,  125. 

RUSSELL,  B.,  137,  166,  169,  170,  176,  182, 
185,  187,  190,  202,  206,  210. 

SCIENCE,   metaphysics*   indebtedness  to 

its  progress,  84  ff. 
SECONDARY  QUALITIES,  external  reality 

of,  299. 


SELECTION,  393. 

SIMILARITY,    337-339,    as    function    of 

space,  time,  and  quality,  263. 
SIMPLES,  118. 
SOCIETY,  142. 
SPACE,  analysis  of,  181  ff . ;  continuity  of, 

184  ff . ;  as  ultimate  category,  263. 
SPECIFIC    NERVE    ENERGIES,    314-321, 

328-330. 

SPECIFIC  RESPONSE,  354-355,  373. 
SPENCER,  H.,  350. 
STIMULUS,  383,  425. 
SUBJECT,  144. 

SUBJECTIVISM,  5  ff. ;  theory  of,  251. 
SUBJECTIVITY  and  consciousness,  136  ff. 
SUBSISTENT,  definition  of,  253 ;    as  in- 
volving proposition,  253. 
SUBSTANCE,  99  ff. ;   as  function  of  space, 

time,  and  quality,  264 ;    mental  and 

physical,  354,  368,  372. 
SUBSTANCE-UNITS,  254. 
SUBSTANTISM,  types  of,  267. 
SUBSTANTIST,    view   of   causality,    266- 

267. 

TERMS,  175;  as  changeless  and  duration- 
less,  254. 

THING-ATTRIBUTE,  109. 

TIME,  analysis,  190  ff. ;  or  ultimate 
category,  263. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM,  its  fallacious  char- 
acter, 75  ff. 

TRANSFORMATION,  405. 

TRUE,  definition  of,  252 ;  identity  with 
real,  252. 

TRUTH,  definition  of,  252 ;  degrees  of, 
297-299  ;  genesis  of,  289  ff. ;  two  kinds 
of,  289-292 ;  Joachim  on,  104. 

VALUE,  140  ff.,  148. 
VELOCITY,  204  ff . 
VITALISM,  244  ff. 

WARD,  J.,  13  ff. 

WHOLE,  organic,  237  ff. ;  types  of,  162  ff. 

WHOLE  AND  PART,  organic,  422. 

WHOLE-PART,  107. 

WOODBRIDGE,  F.  J.  E.,  441. 

WORDS,  use  of,  21  ff. 


HPHE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  a 
few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kindred  subjects. 


1 


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The  Philosophy  of  Kant 

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Queen's  College,  Kingston,  Canada.  Published  in  Glasgow,  1888.  Second 
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